The Cardinals' medical staff determined that promising third baseman Blaze Jordan would be unable to return this season because of the severity of the high ankle sprain that he suffered Aug. 27. Jordan was injured on the day of his first Busch Stadium home run.
A day that should have been one of the happiest and most memorable of Blaze Jordan’s young MLB career continues to put a sizeable damper on his first season with the St. Louis Cardinals.
Jordan, 23, hit the first Busch Stadium home run of his Cardinals’ career on Aug. 27 against the Baltimore Orioles, but he also suffered a gruesome high ankle sprain that day while making a diving tag of Orioles’ star Gunnar Henderson at third base.
The injury to Jordan’s left ankle – one that came just as his bat was starting to heat up – will end his season, manager Oliver Marmol said on Saturday before his Cardinals faced the Nationals in the second-to-last home game of the 2026 season.
Jordan, a native of Southaven, Mississippi who grew up dreaming of playing for the Cardinals, has been working vigorously to try and return before the end of the season. In recent days, Jordan had progressed to the point where he was taking grounders, hitting in the cage and doing some light jogging around the bases. However, because of the severity of his ankle injury, the Cardinals medical staff has refused to clear him for game activity with just seven games left in the regular season.
“Still progressing through all baseball activities. The high ankle sprain is going to take time and we’re still not comfortable with him taking the next step by putting him into a game,” Marmol said while relaying information from Cardinals’ head athletic trainer Adam Olsen. “We’re probably going to run out of time to see him again this season.”
Unfortunately, the injury hit just as Jordan was starting to make tangible strides with both his bad and glove for the Cardinals.
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 made 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.
When asked about the third base job for the 2027 season, Marmol had a two-word description about the positional battle between Gorman, Jordan and Fermin.
“Wide open,” the manager said.
Jordan’s promise as the Cardinals’ third baseman of the future was more evident than ever on Aug. 27 when he drilled a three-run homer before going down with the ankle injury. With his family looking on, Jordan smashed a Trevor Rogers changeup 416 feet 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 remembers the swirl of highs and lows he felt that day.
“There were a lot of crazy emotions,” 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.”
