ST. LOUIS - Matt Carpenter will rejoin the St. Louis Cardinals today after missing a weekend series in Pittsburgh because of dehydration and fatigue.
General manager John Mozeliak said manager Mike Matheny will decide whether Carpenter starts in today's series opener at Cleveland. Carpenter is among the National League leaders with a .333 average and is tied for the league lead with 14 doubles.
The team mandated what the GM referred to as a "timeout" for Carpenter while the team's medical staff tried to determine the problem. Mozeliak believes there would be no restrictions going forward.
"Obviously, we're going to be more cognizant of what goes on," Mozeliak said Monday. "In terms of doing things differently, we're going to look at a lot of things. I can tell you they ran the gauntlet of things just to rule out and most importantly, just to give him a path of where he needs to be."
The 29-year-old Carpenter had been hitting .378 before a 2-for-18 slump, although both of the hits were homers.
Mozeliak also said Tyler Lyons will remain in the rotation for now, filling the spot of sidelined ace Adam Wainwright.
Marco Gonzales and Jaime Garcia both made injury rehabilitation starts last weekend and both will make at least one more start in the minor leagues and probably more.
The Cardinals lead the major leagues with a 22-9 record and Mozeliak said the team will be patient waiting for those two.
"As long as our starters are giving us a chance, we're going to try to do this internally," Mozeliak said. "We're not naive, we get it. You lose Adam Wainwright, that's 230 innings gone."
Complicating the issue, the Cardinals are wary about having young starters Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez throw 200 innings.