Cards' Walker set to rest after avoiding serious left knee injury

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Jordan Walker, the former top prospect in the Cardinals' organization and the 6-foot-6, 260-pound outfield talent that the club hopes to build around in 2025 and beyond, appears to have avoided serious injury after jamming his left knee on Tuesday when he stepped on a sprinkler head while tracking a fly ball.

Walker underwent an MRI exam on Tuesday, and it revealed only irritation -- and no structural damage -- per manager Oliver Marmol. The Cardinals are planning on shutting Walker down from all baseball-related duties for a week before allowing him to work his way back. With 2 1/2 weeks of Spring Training games remaining, the club thinks it will be able to allow Walker’s knee time to heal and still get him into several Grapefruit League games before Opening Day against the Twins on March 27 at Busch Stadium.

“It is what it is. 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,” Marmol said prior to his team’s game against the Astros on Wednesday afternoon.

Marmol said Walker was in good spirits about avoiding a serious injury and he professed a willingness to try and work his way back as soon as possible.

“He was perfectly fine and what you would expect it to be,” Marmol said of Walker’s reaction. “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.”

Walker was injured while tracking a fly ball during the third inning of Tuesday’s 6-4 Spring Training win over the Nationals at Cacti Park. Marmol confirmed on Wednesday morning that Walker stepped on a sprinkler head in the outfield while chasing the fly ball, causing his knee to jam. Walker, who struck out looking in his only at-bat, was removed from the game with lingering pain in his left knee and he was later taken for an MRI exam.

Much of the Cardinals’ shift in focus to their young core in 2025 centered around providing consistent playing time for Walker, the former top prospect in baseball who has struggled in two MLB seasons thus far. Walker opened his MLB career with hits in his first 12 games and logged a .276 average with 16 home runs, 19 doubles and 51 RBIs in his rookie season of '23. However, the Cards demoted him to Triple-A Memphis for an extended period to try and fix the launch angle on his swings.

In '24, Walker opened the season as the club’s starting right fielder, but a slow start had him back in Triple-A for most of the season. Walker was promoted twice and ended up playing 51 games with St. Louis, but his average dipped to .201, while his strikeout rate spiked to 28.1 percent.

Walker, who doesn’t turn 23 years old until May 22, entered Spring Training with renewed enthusiasm about his swing after spending much of the offseason working with new hitting coach Brant Brown. Though Walker hasn’t found much success in sheer numbers -- he is 2-for-14 with one double, two RBIs and eight strikeouts thus far -- the Cardinals have been encouraged with how hard he has hit balls.

For example, Walker was 0-for-2 in Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Marlins, but the club was particularly happy with how he swung the bat. Walker hit a 99.2 mph liner, according to Statcast, to center in his first at-bat for an RBI, and then he lined out to left (102.1 mph) in his second at-bat. In his final plate appearance, Walker pulled his hands in and lofted a deep fly ball to the wall in left field. Miami’s Mark Coley II went above the top of the wall to rob Walker of a home run on a blast that traveled a projected 387 feet.

“He’s more in his legs, I feel like he’s more balanced and he’s cleaner to the ball,” Marmol said. “You’re seeing a lot more hard line drives to all fields and he’s able to stay on the ball, and not run out of bat [in the strike zone]. I’ve really liked what we’ve seen up to this point. There’s confidence in how he’s going about it and it’s transferring into the games, so that’s been good.”