Shuster returns just as the Cardinals are facing a Dodgers team stacked with star lefthanders Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Kyle Tucker and Max Muncy. Cardinals’ manager Oliver Marmol said that Shuster could factor heavily in this season to supplement other lefties JoJo Romero and Justin Bruihl.

“I can use him a couple of different ways,” Marmol said of Shuster, who also might serve as a long reliever in games with lopsided scores. “I won’t be afraid to shoot him out there in a lefty lane and let it play out – that’s part of why we got him here. He can go multiples and take three innings at a time to give the ‘pen a break. Or we can just use him for one-inning stints and see what it looks like in those lefty lanes.”

Cards like what they saw from Dobbins

Marmol said the organization now has a better idea what they have in the 26-year-old Dobbins, who will serve as a depth starter at the Triple-A level and could be back in St. Louis as a long-term answer at some point this season.

“I thought Dobbins did a nice job, and when you look at those first three innings from him, that’s exactly what you would want,” said Marmol, whose club rebounded from a four-game losing streak with a four-game sweep in Pittsburgh. “He ran into a little trouble out of the stretch when he lost the release point and struggled making the necessary adjustments. But as far as stuff out of the hand, I thought he did a really nice job for us.”

In a stretch off 17 games over 17 days, Marmol was happy that Dobbins was able to take a start that gave extra days of rest for Friday starter, Matthew Liberatore and Saturday starter Dustin May. The Cardinals will revert to a five-man rotation for the time being, but they could use a six-man staff in the future in Marmol and pitching coach Dusty Blake notice wear and tear on the staters.

“He came up there and helped us put everybody on a six (-man rotation), which was very helpful to everyone,” he said. “You communicate the situation clearly (with Dobbins) about the arms that are up here, what the need is based on schedule, and you allow them to have input for clarity. But (Dobbins) was glad to be able to come up here and show what he’s capable of doing and he’ll be ready when his name is called again.”

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