The St. Louis Cardinals may not be officially eliminated from the playoff race yet, but they may as well be; they are 4.5 games behind the New York Mets for the third and final NL Wild Card spot with four teams ahead of them in the standings. Their 5-3 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday won’t help matters at all for them, but they simply are not just going to give up without a fight — especially franchise cornerstone Masyn Winn.

Winn was held out by the Cardinals for their Tuesday night contest against the Mariners, with Thomas Saggese starting at shortstop. While it’s not quite clear if this is a one-off for the youngster or if he’ll need to miss more games, it has become evident that the meniscus tear he suffered is bothering him to the point that he needed to take a day off.

But like the wide-eyed 23-year-old rising star that he is, the Cardinals shortstop wants to play as long as his body will allow him to even though he recognized that something may have to be done to alleviate the pain that he’s experiencing.

“Some stuff is going to have to be done this offseason to help me out. I want to finish the year as strong as possible. I was told I probably can’t do too much worse to it. If I can’t hurt myself any further because of this, then I want to be out there,” Winn said, per Katie Woo of The Athletic.

Considering how important Winn is to the Cardinals franchise, expect them to be very cautious when it comes to handling his injury problems. But it is admirable that he wants to give it his all until the very end, endearing himself even more to Cardinals fans in the process.

Masyn Winn is the Cardinals’ franchise cornerstone

Winn has done nothing but be productive for the Cardinals in his first two full big-league seasons; in two seasons, he’s recorded 7.1 WAR (per Fangraphs), with his value coming mostly from his elite defense at the toughest position to handle in the infield.

The 23-year-old may have a leap in him still from the plate; in his rookie year, he had a wRC+ of 104, which is at least above league-average. This year, however, that has dropped to 91 — with his power production falling off. But he’s very young and has a bright future ahead of him, and improving is not a matter of if, but when, for the Cardinals franchise cornerstone — provided, of course, that he manages to shake off the injury bug that may be hampering his production.