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The Cardinals' Juan Yepez sticks out his tongue at his teammates on the bench as he he circles the bases on a home run against the Cubs on June 26, 2022, at Busch Stadium. 

While the Cardinals await word Monday on how pitcher Jack Flaherty (shoulder strain) felt after Sunday’s aggressive bullpen session before deciding on the start of his latest minor-league rehabilitation program, slugger Juan Yepez knows when and where he is going.

Yepez, recovering from a forearm strain, will head to Memphis on Tuesday for what he believes will be a week or less of games.

The right-handed batter, who has hit 11 home runs in just 62 games, will start off playing first base for a few innings, he said. Then he would serve as a designated hitter and graduate to right field, which is where the Cardinals really want to see him perform.

Manager Oliver Marmol said he was envisioning Yepez as a right-handed-hitting counterpart to left-handed-batting Lars Nootbaar in the Cardinals’ new-look outfield — which will feature left fielder Tyler O’Neill and center fielder Dylan Carlson as everyday players.

Yepez did his most extensive throwing on Sunday before the game. He has been out longer than anticipated — Yepez was hurt in mid-July — because he had encountered discomfort in the first throwing program he undertook.

“We had a little setback,” he said. “We threw too quickly, so we had to shut it down for a bit. We threw and it started hurting the elbow. But we’re definitely in the right direction.”

Yepez should return sometime during the next homestand, which encompasses three-games series with Milwaukee and Colorado, beginning Friday after the Cardinals take a three-game trip to Denver this week.

“Plenty of time to come back and win the pennant — and maybe Rookie of the Year, who knows?” Yepez said, smiling.

Marmol said, “We’ll see how he comes out from throwing the baseball, and then we’ll have some decisions to make then. Tough decisions are good decisions.

“(Yepez’s) ability to play the field is important.”

The “hope,” Marmol said, is that Flaherty will begin his second rehab assignment this week. The first went well but might have ended too early. Flaherty was ineffective and then was hurt again after he came back.

Right-hander Miles Mikolas will start Tuesday in Colorado, so he will be able to start Sunday in the series finale here against the Brewers. Marmol said he wanted his two aces, Mikolas and Adam Wainwright, available for the first-place showdown with Milwaukee.

Wainwright, who started Sunday, will pitch either Friday or Saturday. His 111 pitches to get through four innings Sunday were the most for a start of four innings since Yu Darvish threw 113 for Texas against Houston in 2014.

“A clunker,” Wainwright called his performance after the Cardinals’ 12-9 victory over the New York Yankees.

Mikolas has given up five homers in 10²/³ innings over three games at Coors Field in his career.

Yadier Molina’s single in the third inning Sunday was his 1,000th career hit at Busch Stadium III, where he is the career leader. A standing ovation was accorded to Molina, as he stood at first base and waved to the crowd.

Matt Carpenter, now with the Yankees, is second (583). Albert Pujols is next (563).

Molina is only the second catcher to have that many hits in his home park, with St. Louisan and Hall of Famer Yogi Berra having 1,042 at the original Yankee Stadium.

Newly acquired right-handed reliever Chris Stratton picked up his sixth win of the season (five with Pittsburgh) by working from the fifth into the sixth inning Sunday for the Cardinals.

He gave up six hits, mostly on ground-ball singles, but also got four strikeouts of the five men retired.

• Sunday’s game, attended by a paid crowd of 46,472, marked the 500th regular-season sellout at Busch Stadium III.

• Sunday’s game lasted 20 minutes more than the previous longest nine-inning contest in the stadium. San Francisco and the Cardinals went 4:05 on Sept. 4, 2019.

• The Cardinals’ home game against Atlanta on Aug. 28 has been moved from the afternoon to ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball.”

• Every batter in the Cardinals’ lineup Sunday either had either a hit, run or run batted in.

Keep up with the latest Cardinals coverage from our award-winning team of reporters and columnists.

Rick Hummel is a Cardinals beat writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

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The New York Yankees did not enjoy their weekend stay in steamy St. Louis.

The Cardinals' Juan Yepez sticks out his tongue at his teammates on the bench as he he circles the bases on a home run against the Cubs on June 26, 2022, at Busch Stadium. 

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