Baseball: Love will be in big league camp for first time

Published 2:14 pm Wednesday, January 28, 2026

 

 

Staff report

Austin Love (West Rowan) will report to the St. Louis Cardinals Major League Camp for Spring Training.

It will be the first time in the big league camp in Jupiter, Fla., for Love, a right-handed pitcher. Spring Training workouts for the Cardinals will start on Feb. 12.

Love, who turned 27 a few days ago, was one of 27 non-roster invitees for the Cardinals. Eleven of those 27 are pitchers.

Love is a big, athletic guy and is listed at 6-foot-3, 232 pounds. He played in the infield for West Rowan coach Seth Graham when he didn’t pitch, and he was an exceptional rebounder for coach Mike Gurley’s basketball team.

Love pitched for three seasons at the University of North Carolina (2019-21) and posted a 19-8 record. He was a starting pitcher as a freshman and junior and was used as a relief pitcher as a sophomore.

He won 10 games and struck out 129 batters as a workhorse for the Tar Heels as a junior in 2021. That performance made him a high draft pick, and the Cardinals took him in the third round, the 90th overall selection, and signed him.

Love had his ups and downs in the minor leagues in 2021 and 2022 as a starting pitcher. Then he had Tommy John surgery, which cost him nearly all of the 2023 season and all of 2024.

He made a comeback from elbow surgery in 2025 and experienced considerable success at the Double-A level as a short reliever for the Cardinals team in Springfield, Mo., working one or two innings per outing. He was 6-1 with a 2.41 ERA and two saves. He had 63 strikeouts and 26 walks in 56 innings.

Love isn’t expected to make the St. Louis roster out of Spring Training, but starting the season in Triple-A with the Memphis Redbirds is a realistic scenario. Love doesn’t have a lot left to prove at Double-A.

 

 

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