JUPITER, Fla. -- Cardinals catcher/designated hitter Iván Herrera is expected back on the field on Tuesday against the Astros. He hasn’t played since March 6 against the Orioles because of an inflamed right knee. Herrera doesn’t know how he hurt the knee. He can only guess how the injury came about.
“I have no idea. I was just running,” Herrera said. “I played, and we had a long drive back from Sarasota to [Jupiter]. I don’t know if that affected me. I was fine all night, and I woke up and my knee was bothering me a little bit and we decided to go day by day. We didn’t need to push it.”
Herrera started baseball activities last week. He was seen on the back fields at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium swinging the bat against Minor League pitching, doing catching drills and running the bases without any problems.
The Cardinals need Herrera to be ready for Opening Day against the Rays on March 26. He may be third on the depth chart behind the plate, but will spend most of his time as a DH. Last year was a breakout season for Herrera. He was arguably St. Louis’ best hitter in 2025, leading the Cardinals in on-base percentage (.373), slugging (.464) and OPS (.837) among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances.
His best month was September, when he had a slash line of .276/.394/.575 with eight homers. Herrera credits Driveline Baseball, a player development organization and training facility specializing in pitching and hitting analytics, biomechanics and strength training.
“I feel like I always had the power, but I didn’t know how to use it,” Herrera said “My mechanics weren’t the best. I was crossing my body. I was pushing forward. They had me understand how I should be positioned a little better in the batter’s box. After that, everything changed.”
Driveline wasn’t the only thing that helped Herrera; confidence played a huge role.
“I want to give myself credit. … I put in the work,” Herrera said. “The only thing that changed last year was confidence. I was really confident when I was playing. I believe in myself way more than I did the first couple of years.
“You are going to face, for example, Tarik Skubal, Justin Verlander, and I was overwhelmed by that [earlier in my career]. I didn’t see people succeeding in my country [Panama], and I was like, ‘Damn, how am I going to do that?’ Then, I [figured], I work hard. I did everything I could to be in this spot. Let’s go at it. Let’s believe in yourself. I went and did it. Everything changed.”
Herrera is 25 years old, and he is expected to join Masyn Winn and Alec Burleson as one of the leaders on the Cardinals, a club that is much younger than it was in previous years. Don’t tell Herrera that his team is going to struggle during the ‘26 season.
“Dude, people keep saying that we are young, but if you look position-by-position, we have guys with great talent,” Herrera proclaimed. “We have Masyn Winn at shortstop. I don’t know if JJ [Wetherholt] is going to make the team, but this kid has been impressive. He has his confidence in the box. He is taking great at-bats. At the end of the day, you want a guy like that on your team. Burly just won a Silver Slugger. We have a good group of guys. We are going to compete this year.
“I believe we have great pitching. We have [Dustin] May and [Ryne] Stanek, who brings so much good energy. I was thinking Stanek was going to be a grumpy old guy, but this guy is always smiling. I would say he is the happiest guy on the team. I love having him on the team.”