Cardinals Have Tough, Non-Trade Decisions Looming

The St. Louis Cardinals have won six straight games.

St. Louis now is 20-19 on the season and is just two games out of the top spot in the National League Central. If the Cardinals can keep playing like this, there's no reason why they can't gain even more ground in the standings.

The Cardinals have some decisions to make, though. There are only so many at-bats to go around and now Iván Herrera is back up with the big league club. Entering the season, it was said that the was going to give Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman as many chances as possible this year. But, both have struggled offensively. Will the team make any tough decisions?

FanSided's Scott Plaza weighed in on the potential "lineup crunch" that's looming.

"Ivan Herrera's return from injury and Alec Burleson's power surge could take playing time away from struggling hitters," Plaza said. "At the time of his injury, Ivan Herrera was one of the hottest hitters in all of baseball and the best hitter in the Cardinals' lineup. The catcher led the team with four homers and 12 RBIs while putting up a 1.506 OPS that Aaron Judge would be jealous of. While running the bases, Herrera picked up the injury and had to be helped off of the field while all of Cardinal Nation held their breath when he went for imaging on his knee. The results seemed like a best-case scenario, as it turned out to be a bad bone bruise that was expected to sideline the backstop for at least four weeks...

"If Burleson can maintain this hot streak, it would be tough to argue that Herrera should take the main DH spot. The lefty has played in 33 of the team's first 37 games, so it seemed unlikely that Burleson would be relegated to the bench anyway, but if he continued to struggle, it would not have been surprising to see him lose out on some playing time. This surge, though, most likely puts Herrera back into the starting catcher role, even though he split that role with Pages early in the season due to his defensive struggles. This shift would put Pages back on the bench along with Luken Baker, Jose Barrero, and Nolan Gorman. Jordan Walker has struggled badly, but his promised runway and ability to play the outfield appears to keep his spot in the order safe for the time being."

How are the Cardinals going to handle all of the at-bats?