St. Louis Cardinals right fielder Jordan Walker will miss at least a week after sustaining a minor knee injury when he stepped on a sprinkler head in a spring training game.
Walker, 22, was running down a fly ball against the Washington Nationals on Tuesday when he was injured. He had an MRI later Tuesday which showed irritation in his left knee but no structural damage, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol told reporters on Wednesday.
“It is what it is,” Marmol said. “We’ll let it calm down for a week and then we’ll ramp that baby back up, and we’ll still have time to see him in plenty of (spring training) games.”
Walker was removed from the game, which the Cardinals won 6-4 in West Palm Beach, Fla. Marmol said Walker was relieved that the injury wasn’t serious.
“He was perfectly fine and what you would expect it to be,” Marmol said. “He wants to be there every day, but knowing this is just some inflammation that he needs to allow to calm down so that he can get back into it, that’s obviously a positive. He was fine.”
The 6-foot-6 Walker is a career .255 hitter in parts of the past two seasons with the Cardinals, with 21 home runs and 71 RBIs, a .317 on-base percentage and .423 slugging percentage in 168 games.
The Cardinals selected Walker No. 21 overall in the 2020 MLB Draft out of Decatur (Ga.) High School.
