St. Louis Cardinals Roster Matrix: 40-man Tyler Lyons edition

On Monday morning, we looked at the current statuses of the various St. Louis Cardinals who are on the disabled list or day-to-day. General manager John Mozeliak had a conference call with the media on Monday afternoon and gave a more detailed update for these various players. I recommend reading Derrick Goold's article at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for the particulars.

The big news is Carpenter's return to the club on Tuesday. No DL for the Cards' early-season MVP. But the second juicy tidbit is that Tyler Lyons will remain in the rotation, filling in for the injured Adam Wainwright, for at least another turn in the rotation and probable two. After my last Roster Matrix update had a shelf life of about 30 minutes due to the Cardinals' decision to demote Tim Cooney to Triple-A, I decided to wait to update the current St. Louis 40-man until the club made their plans for Cooney, Jaime Garcia, and Marco Gonzales known.

For the series in Cleveland (featuring the DH), the Cardinals appear poised to continue with their bloated bullpen approach. Instead of the usual seven relievers, the Cards will have eight. Combined with their five starters, St. Louis will have 13 pitchers instead of the normal 12. This means a short bench consisting of backup catcher Tony Cruz—who the manager is unlikely to use as a pinch-hitter for fear of leaving him backup catcher-less (even if Pete Kozma is the emergency catcher)—Mark Reynolds, Kozma, and Jon Jay (who Mozeliak indicated is a game-time decision on Tuesday due to the hand or thumb injury he suffered in Pittsburgh).