Cardinals select Jose Rondon, make other roster moves

The Cardinals made a number of roster moves on Saturday, as reported by MLB.com’s Jeff Jones. Counter to Friday’s report that Jose Rondon would be released to participate on Venezuela’s Olympic team, Rondon instead has had his contract selected to join the Cardinals’ major league roster. Rondon last appeared in the majors in 2019. He owns a .206/.260/.336 line across 290 career plate appearances with the Orioles, Padres and White Sox.

The Cardinals are adding Rondon as a response to Max Moroff suffering left shoulder subluxation, an injury that will land him on the 10-day injured list. Moroff was just 1-for-16 in six games this season.

In other moves, Junior Fernandez has been recalled from Triple-A, while Johan Oviedo has been optioned to Triple-A, but he will remain with the team on the taxi squad, per the team. Fernandez was just optioned on Friday, but he’s able to rejoin the team because of the Moroff injury. The 24-year-old has just two appearances this season covering 3 2/3 innings.

Oviedo, meanwhile, has appeared five times, starting four games. He has posted a 5.40 ERA/6.02 FIP across 20 innings with a 47.4 percent groundball rate, 17.4 percent strikeout rate and 16.3 percent walk rate. The Cardinals will want to see significant improvement from Oviedo in those strikeout and walk rates, but with just 20 innings, we’re still in the small sample-size category for the 23-year-old.