McGreevy's hard work pays off with extended MLB look on horizon

This story was excerpted from John Denton’s Cardinals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ST. LOUIS – The recent conversation with Michael McGreevy was the same as it was at the end of Spring Training, a stellar stretch in which the 24-year-old right-handed pitcher did everything needed to make the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster, but still was sent to Triple-A Memphis.

“I mean, the guy’s done well and he deserves to be a big leaguer,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of McGreevy, who will be promoted from Triple-A on Sunday to start against the Dodgers at Busch Stadium.

McGreevy, the No. 10-ranked prospect in the Cards' system per MLB Pipeline, is headed back to the big leagues -- where he has deserved to be much of the past two years -- but he’s been forced to remain patient and in Triple-A because of the Cardinals’ glut of established starting pitchers.

The driving force for McGreevy’s promotion this time around is to provide a day of rest to a Cardinals pitching staff laboring through a stretch of games on 13 straight days and 28 games in 29 days. His arrival will give another day of rest to starters Andre Pallante and Matthew Liberatore, both of whom have started to show cracks during some recent struggles. Also, promoting McGreevy pushes staff ace Sonny Gray’s next start to Thursday, when he will face the rival Brewers in Milwaukee to kick off a key four-game series.

Despite all those ancillary reasons for the promotion, Marmol made one thing perfectly clear on Saturday morning: McGreevy has done everything necessary to earn a return trip to St. Louis, and his Sunday start won’t be a one-off assignment. Not only was McGreevy 3-0 with a 1.96 ERA in four MLB games late in 2024, but he also smothered the Mets to the tune of one hit over 5 2/3 innings of scoreless relief on May 4 of this season. Add in McGreevy’s 6-1 record, his 2.78 ERA and his 58-to-12 strikeout-to-walk ratio this season for Memphis, and he’s shown he belongs in the big leagues.

“Obviously, we’ve seen him do well up here, and he’s gone down [to Triple-A] and he continues to stay head down while working on things that have given him this success, and it makes a ton of sense to have him back up here,” Marmol said. “For his age and level of experience, [his comfort] is what is probably most impressive about him. He enjoys competing, simply put. He has fun out there and he doesn’t make anything bigger than what it looks. He just enjoys what he’s doing, and it’s fun to watch.”

Not only will McGreevy be rejoining his former prep teammate at San Clemente (Calif.) High School in Pallante on the Cardinals’ staff, the Southern California native will be squaring off against a boyhood team in the Dodgers and legendary left-hander Clayton Kershaw. Up to that point, the high point of McGreevy’s MLB career came last September, when he closed the 2024 season by limiting the Giants to one run and five hits over eight innings before a large contingent of family and friends in San Francisco.

That stellar moment drove McGreevy throughout the offseason, one he used to add muscle and cut body fat so he could be the best version of himself this season. Going forward, his work will be at a big league level he has proven worthy of at various points over the past two seasons.

“It’s just great to be back in the big leagues,” McGreevy said back in May when he was promoted from Memphis to the Cardinals for his one-game cameo against the Mets. “We have a great group down in Memphis, but this is heaven, and this is where you want to be.”