Cardinals Nolan Arenado Reveals What Changed His 2025 Season

The St. Louis Cardinals haven't had third baseman Nolan Arenado available for a game since July 30th.

At that time, Arenado was providing his typical stellar defense over at the hot corner, but he was slashing just .235/.294/.366 with 10 home runs and 43 RBIs in 96 games played. Right after the trade deadline passed, we found out a bit more about why this was the case. He was placed on the Injured List due to a shoulder injury and has been rehabbing ever since. Now, he's getting close enough to the point where he could begin a rehab assignment as soon as this week and then potentially make it back in time for the Cardinals before the 2025 season comes to an end.

The shoulder has been talked about a lot since. But, The Athletic's Katie Woo shared a quote from Arenado in which he attributed the shoulder injury to a finger injury he tried to play through.

The St. Louis Cardinals could get Nolan Arenado back soon

Jun 24, 2025; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado (28) fields a ground ball against the Chicago Cubs during the fifth inning at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

"This is just the fourth stint on the IL in Arenado’s 13-year career, and the 34-year-old doesn’t feel his shoulder injury is related to age," Woo said. "Instead, he identified a sprained finger sustained in late June as the initial factor, explaining that compensating for the finger led to the shoulder injury.

"If I can do it all over again, I probably would have just took time when I hurt my finger,” Arenado said. "That was probably the biggest mistake I made. … Usually you just play through things, you know, that’s what you’re taught to do. But that was just a mistake I made. I didn’t really reevaluate myself the proper way...This year hasn’t felt great physically, but it didn’t feel like old-age injuries,” he added. “I just got to get out there, show who I am, show that I’m healthy, hit the ball hard again. Those are the things I’m going to have to do, and I’m really focused on those things right now."

That's pretty interesting. Arenado jammed his finger back on June 29th. At that point, he had 10 home runs, 41 RBIs, and was slashing .249/.309/.399 in 79 games. After that, he slashed .167/.219/.200 with zero home runs and two RBIs in 17 games. It wasn't talked about too much at the time, but clearly it was a turning point for the Cardinals third baseman.

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