Analysis: St. Louis is off Thursday and will likely wait until shortly before Friday's game against the Phillies to announce a replacement for Roycroft on the 26-man active roster. After winning a bullpen role out of spring training, Roycroft made seven relief appearances and collected two holds through the first two weeks of the season while allowing seven runs (five earned) on six hits and six walks over 5.2 innings.

Analysis: Nick Anderson, Kyle Leahy and Riley O'Brien are the others in the mix. Roycroft has put his best foot forward to claim one of the jobs, tossing six scoreless frames with a 5:1 K:BB during Grapefruit League play. The 6-foot-8 right-hander excelled at limiting hard contact last season with a 33.7 percent hard-hit rate and two percent barrel rate, but he'll need to find a weapon against left-handed batters after they had a .955 OPS against him in 2024. If Roycroft makes the Opening Day roster, it's likely to be as a middle reliever initially.