The Cardinals’ season took a brutal turn Tuesday when a J.D. Martinez swing crushed catcher Willson Contreras’ left forearm, and the three-time All-Star exited with what the team eventually announced as a left arm fracture.
With one out in the second inning, Miles Mikolas threw a slider that induced a swing from the Mets’ designated hitter.
But Contreras appeared to be close enough to the plate for Martinez to make contact with his arm.
“This is the most pain I’ve been through, for sure,” Contreras told reporters postgame. “I knew right away it was a bad situation, and then when I got to sit down in the dirt, it was numb. I knew it wasn’t right.”
Martinez ended up advancing to first base on catcher’s interference.
And Contreras was left in obvious pain — with the catcher, Mikolas and manager Oliver Marmol were left answering questions about the risk of the position, especially if players are inching closer to the batter to frame low pitches.
“It’s a huge risk,” Marmol told reporters after the Cardinals lost, 7-5, to the Mets, “and it’s been talked about. Even during the offseason, it was a topic of discussion because there was an increase in them. The more catchers are evaluated on framing, the closer they’re getting to the hitter in order to get that low pitch. So it’s definitely a topic of conversation. The risk is high. We just experienced it.”
He rolled around behind the plate for a few moments and moved around screaming in pain before a trainer arrived and helped Contreras to the ground near the Cardinals’ dugout.
Earlier in the game, Contreras, who signed with the Cardinals following the 2022 campaign after seven MLB seasons with the Cubs, doubled — before later scoring — in St. Louis’ three-run first inning against Jose Butto.
He entered Tuesday night hitting .274 with a .931 OPS.
Contreras made All-Star appearances in 2018, 2019 and 2022, and was a member of the Cubs team that snapped the franchise’s 108-year World Series drought in 2016.
Eight years later, he was again slated to serve a pivotal role on a Cardinals team aiming for their second NL Central title across the past three seasons.
St. Louis kept its three-run lead intact until the fifth inning Tuesday, when the Mets erupted for six runs in the frame — three crossing the plate via a Brandon Nimmo homer, two scoring on Pete Alonso’s double and another scoring on Martinez’s RBI single.
