About two weeks before he took the field Wednesday night at Busch Stadium, Cardinals infielder Jose Fermin talked with Jose Oquendo, a Cardinals Hall of Famer and the organization’s minor league coordinator of instruction. Of the things that came up in Fermin’s conversation with the longtime Cardinal was the topic of pinch-hitting and Oquendo’s history in those situations. “He told me .
.. read what a team wanted from me if it was like, 'OK, you need to get on base.
You need to come swinging,’” Fermin on Thursday. “Things like that. He was just telling me about patience.
Being a little patient sometimes is not a bad thing, especially because he told me we are kind of similar hitters where we make a lot of contact and we don't strike out much.” Fermin put Oquendo’s words of wisdom into practice in his first game back in the majors since July 6. After being told around 11 a.
m. he was being recalled to the majors — and after traffic slowed him on his drive from Memphis, Tennessee, to St. Louis — Fermin arrived at Busch Stadium by the third inning of Wednesday’s National League Central matchup against Milwaukee.
Fermin recalled getting stretched and preparing to come off the bench if needed as some of the first things he did upon his arrival. “I said (hello) to everyone, and it was just like, roll right into it. Right into getting ready,” he said.
That need came in the top of the eighth inning when Fermin was used as a defensive substitution for Luken B.