Cardinals first-game minor league lineups

Today, Wednesday, March 16 is an important day for the over 140 players in St. Louis Cardinals minor league spring training camp. After a week of seemingly endless drills, bullpens, more drills and more bullpens, this is the first day of game competition.

The rosters that will become the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds and Double-A Springfield Cardinals, denoted below as Groups 1 and 2, will play each other at 1:00 P.M. on the back fields of the Jupiter, Fla. complex. Groups 3 and 4, which will morph into the A-Advanced Palm Beach Cardinals and Class A Quad Cities River Bandits will oppose each other.

While the starting lineups are listed below, the full working rosters of all players at all four levels can be found at TheCardinalNation.com for subscribers. Of course, those rosters can and will change as players are moved around. The minor league groups are expected to pick up the official team names following the next cuts from major league camp, likely occurring following the split-squad day Saturday

Details on the status of 13 injured minor league players are also available for subscribers.

Pitchers are listed below with the approximate number of innings they are expected to work, with an inning roughly estimated to be 20 pitches.

Group 1



Group 2
1 Bynum SS 1 Ramirez SS
2 Solano 2B 2 Parejo LF
3 Brown 3B 3 Curtis 2B
4 Adams 1B 4 Cox 3B
5 Hill C 5 Smith 1B
6 Henley DH 6 Rodriguez RF
7 Bogany RF 7 Lara DH
8 Swauger LF 8 DeJesus CF
9 Rapoport CF 9 Castro C
Walters 4 P Miller 2 P
Thomas 2 McGregor 2
Norrick 1 Castillo 2
Kulik 1 Diapoules 2
Rauschenberger 1 Frevert 1
Group 3

Group 4
1 Swinson RF 1 O’Neill CF
2 Taveras LF 2 Melker LF
3 Longmire CF 3 Tartamella C
4 Stanley DH 4 Medina 1B
5 J. Rodriguez 3B 5 Ruiz DH/3B
6 Conley DH 6 R DeLaCruz 3B/DH
7 Stock C 7 Smith RF
8 Cerreto 1B 8 Walsh 2B
9 Castillo SS 9 Tuivailala DH/3B
S. Rodriguez 2B Valera SS
Blair 2 P Summers 2 P
Swagerty 2 Edwards 2
Moss 2 Smith 2
Brown 1 Reid 1
Simpson 1 McCully 1
Siegrist 1 Jimenez 1
Bittle 1 R. Martinez 1
Kiekhefer 1

I found it interesting that the leadoff man and shortstop for both of the two highest level clubs are minor league free agent signees, Freddie Bynum and Ronald Ramirez.

The first minor league spring training contests against external competition start tomorrow, Thursday. The full slate of games each day, again provided for subscribers, can be found at TheCardinalNation.com.

As every spring, check back here at TheCardinalNationBlog.com for recaps of all the minor league spring training contests supplied daily by Cardinals farm director John Vuch.

Follow me on Twitter.
Follow The Cardinal Nation Blog on Facebook.