Rookie third baseman Blaze Jordan has been out since Aug. 27 -- the day he grotesquely sprained his left ankle under his own body weight while making a stellar tag near the bag. Jordan, who also homered that day, is hoping to play again in 2026.
Determined to rewatch the play that caused him so much pain – both with his grotesquely twisted left ankle and by knocking him out of action just as his swing was making major strides – St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Blaze Jordan cued up the video from Aug. 27 with some sizeable gaps in his memory.
While sprinting to his right to cover third base, Jordan had to stop and reach back to his left to catch a wild throw from relief pitcher George Soriano. Somewhere in there, Jordan tagged Gunnar Henderson for a key out that preserved a win he had played a major part of by smashing a three-run homer earlier – not that he even remembered the tag.
Unfortunately, there was also this: Jordan’s ankle collapsed under the weight of his body and left him in agony and unable to put any weight on his left foot.
“I was telling myself, ‘I don’t think I want to go back and look at that one,’ but then I realized that I didn’t even remember tagging (Henderson) so I had to take a look,” admitted Jordan, who is back to jogging, taking ground balls and hitting in the batting cage in hopes of a return before the end of the season. “It all happened so fast that I didn’t remember actually making the play.
“When I first saw the play again, I was like, ‘Ohhhhh.’ At first, I was thinking, ‘Oh, that (injury is) not good at all,’ but it’s never as bad as you first think. I’m just thankful that it wasn’t worse than we thought it was going to be.”
Jordan, 23, is hoping to return at some point over the final nine games of the season to continue to show that he can play at a high level at third base in the big leagues. When he was promoted for his big-league debut on June 12, there were concerns about how the 6-foot-1, 220-pounder would fare at the hot corner, but he opened some eyes with his glove there. Not only did he make just five errors in 52 games at third, his Outs Above Average defensive rating (plus-2) was better than that of Nolan Gorman (plus-1), Jose Fermin (zero) and former Gold Glover Ramon Urias (minus-4).
Then, there were the steady improvements that Jordan had started making at the plate before he injured his ankle. After hitting just .235 in June and .227 in July, he hit .275 with two doubles, two triples, two home runs and six RBI in August before going down in a heap and needing help to hobble off the field.
Most importantly, Jordan had started to whittle down a 45.6 percent ground-ball rate at the plate – one that was higher than the MLB average at 44.1 percent. Because he has an excellent hard-hit rate (45 percent) and a low whiff rate (20.8 percent), the Cardinals coaching staff had been on Jordan to lift more balls in the air to potentially do more damage.
“It was heading in a really good direction before he got hurt because he was making some adjustments that were allowing him to play like an average third baseman,” said manager Oliver Marmol, who stressed that he expects to Jordan to play again for the Cardinals before the end of the season. “Offensively, when you talk about missing the way you want to miss, he is a guy who hits the ball hard, but he was spending too much time on the ground and therefore his production was never fully what it could be. But he got to the point where his misses were deep fly balls to center field and that’s what they should be and he was doing that way more than before.
“So, I would have loved for that to continue and him not have had this break in time (with injury.) But my hope is he gets back and we can see a little bit more going into the offseason. But what he was doing (in August) was promising.”
That promise was more evident than ever on Aug. 27 when Jordan drilled a three-run homer before going down with the ankle injury. With his family looking one, Jordan smashed a Trevor Rogers changeup 416 feet – and 102.3 mph – off the bat for the first Busch Stadium long ball of his young career.
Some five innings later, what should have been a joyful triumphant day for Jordan devolved into an ugly ankle injury that slowed his MLB progress. Jordan just remember the swirl of emotions he felt that day.
“There were a lot of crazy emotions that day,” Jordan admitted. “I feel like hitting the homer and getting that big out at third made the ankle feel a little better. That way I didn’t feel like I hurt my ankle for no reason. But my family were in the stands that day, so they got to see my first homer here (at Busch Stadium), but they also got to see me get hurt.
“But, again, it could have been a lot worse and I’m hoping I can get back before the end of the season.”
