Veteran right-hander s first season with the Cardinals has come to a close, as the club has placed him on the 15-day injured list due to flexor tendonitis in his right forearm. Right-hander was recalled to replace Gray on the big league roster, and rookie is currently slated to take Grays place in the rotation as noted by . Gray, 34, joined the Cardinals after signing a three-year, $75MM deal with the club on the heels of a dominant 2023 season that saw him post an MLB-best 2.83 FIP as a member of the Twins and finish second in AL Cy Young award voting to Yankees ace . Grays start to the season was slightly delayed by injury but he started strong overall, with a 2.60 ERA and 2.84 FIP in his first nine starts with the club that made it look as though Gray might be able to deliver more of the dominance that he flashed in Minnesota with St. Louis this year. The results have left something to be desired for Gray ever since the calendar flipped to June, however, as he posted a 4.92 ERA in a 15-start stretch from early June to late August before managing to finish the season strong with a 2.55 ERA and 1.91 FIP in his final four starts of the year. That leaves him with a relatively pedestrian 3.84 ERA overall in 166 1/3 innings of work, though the underlying metrics suggest hes been a good bit better than that. After all, even that aforementioned stretch of 15 starts where Gray struggled saw him post a solid enough 3.63 FIP while striking out an excellent 29.3% of his opponents. Looking at his full season stats, hell end the year Hunter Greene Jersey with a 3.13 FIP that ranks seventh-best in the majors, a 30.3% strikeout rate thats tied with for the second-best figure in the big leagues behind likely NL Cy Young award winner , and 3.8 fWAR thats good for seventh-most among NL pitchers this year. Unfortunately, those promising peripheral numbers neither translated to elite production on the field for Gray nor wins for a Cardinals club that was recently eliminated from playoff contention and has a 77-77 record with eight games left to go in the regular season. With that being said, those strong underlying numbers do provide reason for optimism that better days ought to be ahead for the veteran in the future. Thats good news for fans in St. Louis, as Gray is sure to be a key fixture of the clubs starting five next year. , Gray underwent an MRI recently that came back clean and would likely still be pitching if the Cardinals remained in the playoff hunt. That makes it seem unlikely that Grays current ailment will have any sort of impact on him when camp opens up for Spring Training next year. Looking ahead to 2025, Gray figures to anchor a rotation that seems likely to include deadline addition , veteran innings eater , and youngster but still features some uncertainty due to the fact that the club holds team options on the services of both and for next year. While both veterans have been perfectly serviceable back-end arms for the Cardinals this year, with the aforementioned quartet and all expected to return in 2025 it would hardly be a shock to see the club decline the options of one or both players in search of an upgrade to either the rotation or lineup elsewhere on the market. As for replacing Gray in the short term, Leahy returns to the clubs roster as a multi-inning relief option after posting a 4.02 ERA and 3.62 FIP in 47 innings of work earlier this year. Meanwhile, McGreevy made his big league debut in a spot start back in July and impre sed with seven innings of one-run ball and currently sports a 0.90 ERA in ten innings at the big league level along with a 4.02 ERA in 27 starts at Triple-A this year. Bronson Arroyo Jersey