For entertainment value, the Cardinals put on a good show for the fans who purchased tickets for the opening six-game homestand.
The Cardinals scored an average of 7.0 runs per game, cranked 11 home runs, and had two comeback wins. The Redbirds opened with a 3-0 sweep of the Twins but lost two of three games to the Angels.
But the two losses weren’t dull. There was plenty of offense, plot twists, and excitement during Monday’s 5–4 loss to Anaheim in 10 innings. The Cardinals and Angels scrapped through 11 frenetic innings Tuesday, with the visitors coming away with a 9–7 coup.
The small crowds for the three against the Angels didn’t diminish the home team’s enthusiasm or resolve. The Cardinals were pumped with energy, competed with persistence and determination, and wouldn’t let up. Wednesday’s 12–5 comeback win was a showcase of this team’s grit.
The Cardinals had a 3–1 lead vanish when starting pitcher Sonny Gray served up a grand slam homer to Logan O’Hoppe in the top of the seventh. The Cardinals’ win expectancy was 82 percent through six innings, but after Gray loaded the bases to set up the big fly for the Angels, STL’s win expectancy plummeted to 18 percent.
That’s a dramatic flip in momentum, but the unyielding Cardinals immediately punched back for a 5–5 tie, then put the Angels away with a sudden seven-run blitz of outrageous offense in the bottom of the eighth.
Ivan Herrera’s three-homer, six-RBI barrage made him the star of the game — no Cards catcher had ever struck for three bombs in a game in team history — but a lot of sweat and soul went into this admirable winning effort.
Herrera led the way …
But this was a team win all the way.
• Seven different players had at least one hit.
• Four players had multiple hits.
• Seven different STL hitters combined for eight walks.
• Eight different Cardinals scored runs.
The seventh-inning ambush was violent in a baseball sense — but this wasn’t just a mash party. The uprising included a small-ball surprise, with Victor Scott II and Masyn Winn catching the Angels off guard with perfect, back-to-back bunt singles. Whitey Herzog would have approved.
And don’t forget about the three Redbird relievers — Phil Maton, Kyle Leahy, and JoJo Romero — who restored order after the Gray meltdown. The cannonade of offense was vital to the victory, but the three relievers made it stand by combining for three scoreless innings of one-hit, one-walk shutdown work.
I agree with many of you (and my media friends) who made a point that resonated: the 2023 Cardinals and the 2024 Cardinals wouldn’t have pulled this off. Oh, I’m sure that we can find a few really good comeback Ws by this team over the previous two seasons, but that isn’t the point.
This comeback for the win was extra special. It was another presentation by a team that has a sharper focus, increased hunger, and a noticeable tenacity. These dudes love to play ball, and it shows.
“The guys are picking each other up regardless of what’s going on,” manager Oli Marmol said after Wednesday’s win. “We’ve had some tough blows, and you see guys just continuing to get after it. The overall style of play is what sticks out to me. It’s a good way to play the game.”
That attitude is the reason why the Cardinals closed the homestand with a perfectly acceptable 4–2 record instead of a 3–3 disappointment.
DAILY VIBE CHECK: I’m thinking of good vibrations. The song and the spirit. Brian Wilson composed that famous song for the Beach Boys. It was their best-selling hit, and a highlight of the classic Pet Sounds album. How did this originate? The young Wilson was inspired by something his mother, Audree, told him after he asked her about “vibes.”
“I didn’t really understand too much of what it meant when I was just a boy,” Wilson told an interviewer decades ago. “It scared me, the word ‘vibrations.’ She told me about dogs that would bark at people and then not bark at others, that a dog would pick up vibrations from these people that you can’t see but you can feel.”
Pet Sounds: My favorite album of all time.
And at this point, I’ll conclude my Lester Bangs routine.
Stick to sports!
THE ATTENDANCE WATCH: During the six-game homestand at Busch Stadium, the Cardinals started out with a sellout of 47,395 on Opening Day, but the tickets-sold count predictably dropped after that. After the packed house for the opener, the Cardinals averaged 24,091 tickets sold in the remaining five games.
The Cards sold an average of 35,010 seats per game in sweeping the Twins — and the average fell to 20,940 per contest against the Angels.
Fans purchased a homestand-low 20,309 tix for Wednesday’s 12–5 victory over the Halos, but the folks who went to the game enjoyed a wildly entertaining game.
The six-game average of 27,975 seats sold ranked 11th among the 20 teams that played at home during the first week of the season.
YOUNG GUNS: Even with Masyn Winn off to a cold start — though he warmed with two hits Wednesday — the group of the youngest Cardinal hitters sparked the offense in the first week of the season. And this takes nothing away from Lars Nootbaar and Nolan Arenado, who combined for a .404 average, three homers, 11 RBIs, and 12 runs scored in the six games.
The youngest of the St. Louis hitters could inflate — or deflate — the offense. Yes indeed, they’ll have that kind of impact until the finish line at Game No. 162.
Let’s start with the ages:
• Jordan Walker is 22 years, 10 months.
• Masyn Winn recently turned 23.
• Victor Scott is 24 years, two months.
• Nolan Gorman turns 25 in May.
• Ivan Herrera turns 25 in June.
Technically, Gorman and Herrera are in their age-25 seasons. A ballplayer’s “official” age is based on how old they are on July 1st each season. At least that’s how Baseball Reference does it. So to come up with the stats I wanted, I had to use 25 years or younger as the setting.
OK, now that I got that out of the way, here’s what the five youngest Cardinal hitters did, collectively, in the first two series of the season:
– .326 batting average
– .363 on-base percentage
– .581 slugging percentage
– .944 OPS
– 4 doubles, 6 homers, 30 total bases
– A home run every 14.3 at-bats
– 16 RBIs
– 12% walk rate and a 22% strikeout rate
As a group, the Cardinal hitters age 25 or under rank second in the age category in batting average, second in on-base percentage, second in OPS, and third in slugging. That’s based on a minimum 40 total plate appearances for a team’s cast of young hitters in the 25-under range. One other tidbit: so far, only three teams (Tigers, Nationals, and Braves) have more plate appearances than the Cardinals by players no older than 25.
STATE OF THE OFFENSE: I think the new batting coach, Brant Brown, can keep his job for a while … well, at least until the Cardinals go into the first period of inertia, otherwise known as a slump.
As the Cardinals fly off to Boston for a weekend series at Fenway Park, they’re taking some hot bats on the trip. Perhaps the Red Sox will cool them. I don’t know; that’s why these 30 teams each play 162 games.
But for whatever it’s worth, the Cardinals are leaving town with the highest-scoring offense in the National League, and their average of seven runs per game is second in MLB to the Yankees.
The Cardinals are first in the majors with a .381 on-base percentage, second overall in batting average (.289), third in slugging percentage (.498), third in OPS (.878), third in wRC+ (46% above average), and tied for fourth overall in home runs. I also like this team’s improved walk rate (11.3%), which ranks fifth in the majors.
RISP RECOVERY? After the first six games, the Cardinals rank fifth in the majors with a .294 batting average with runners in scoring position. They’re also fifth in OPS (.919) and eighth in slugging (.515) in RISP setups. One more thing on this: the Cards are tied for second in the majors in home runs (4) with runners in scoring position. That’s notable because the 2024 Cardinals had the fewest home runs in the majors (27) in their RISP swings.
STAT BOY IN THE HOUSE: That would be me. Stat Boy. Why? Because as a younger member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee, I annoyed a legendary Twin Cities sports columnist, the great Sid Hartman, by citing a bunch of facts in support of the candidacy of offensive tackle Jackie Slater. When it was Mr. Hartman’s turn to speak — and he was also presenting a great offensive tackle, Ron Yary — he turned in my direction and said, “I don’t have all these numbers like Stat Boy over there, but Yary is a Hall of Famer. Period.”
The great news: Both Slater and Yary were selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame that year (2001). And even better, the great Sid Hartman lived to age 100. Whenever I would see him at an event through the years, Sid would holler out, “Hey, Stat Boy!” and smile. There’s a statue of Hartman outside Target Center in Minneapolis. He wrote an estimated 21,000 columns for the Minneapolis Star Tribune during his distinguished and prolific career. In the 100th and final year of his life, Sid banged out 119 columns. His final column appeared on Oct. 18, 2020 — the same day he passed away. The perfect way for Sid to go out! Legend! I say this with 100 percent sincerity and appreciation: the “Stat Boy” nickname bestowed on me by the great Sid Hartman was a true honor.
OK, SO STAT BOY HAS STATS: Until Wednesday’s cannon blasts, no catcher in Cards history had ever launched three homers in a game. Assuming that the search engine (StatHead) is accurate and not playing games with me this time — and I’m loyal to StatHead — I was surprised to learn there have been only 34 two-homer games by Cardinals catchers since 1901. So: which catchers had the most chances to crank three in a game?
Yadier Molina had nine two-homer games, Ted Simmons had four, Willson Contreras has four, and Tom Pagnozzi had three. Other two-homer games — just one each — were produced by catchers that you’ve heard of: Tim McCarver, Darrell Porter, Tony Peña, Eli Marrero, Andrew Knizner, and Pedro Pages.
Let’s go deeper into history for the other two-homer days (just one each) by Cards catchers: Gus Mancuso (1930), Bob O’Farrell (1933), Bill Sarni (1956), Hal Smith (1959), and Carl Sawatski (1962).
I am weird, so I love this stuff.
ARENADO, GIVE HIM A BUSCH: I keep going back to this, about how successful the future Hall of Fame third baseman has been hitting at Busch Stadium. Arenado’s power has declined with age, and in a related note, he’ll be 34 on April 16. But the aging curve hasn’t slowed him much at the Busch ballpark.
After a strong six-game homestand that featured a .391 average, a 1.109 OPS, six RBIs, and a dramatic homer, here’s an update on ‘Nado’s numbers at home since the start of the 2024 season: .313 average, .375 OBP, .447 slug, and an .822 OPS. In his 336 plate appearances over that time, Arenado hasn’t clobbered a bunch of homers (just eight), but he’s pumped 16 doubles. Per wRC+, Arenado is 33 percent above league average offensively at Busch Stadium since the start of 2024.
ABOUT SONNY GRAY: He made two starts on the homestand and was rocked for a 5.73 ERA in 11 innings. Last season, Gray had a 2.79 ERA in his 16 starts at Busch Stadium. And after getting struck for only five home runs in 93 ⅔ innings at home last season, Gray was walloped for three homers in 11 innings at Busch in his first two starts of ’25. Gray had an impressive 33.3 percent strikeout rate in his first two outings. But when opponents connected on pitches in the strike zone in Gray’s two starts, they hit .286 with a .536 slugging percentage. And after two assignments, Gray has been muscled for a glaringly high 53.8 percent hard-hit rate and 15.4% barrel rate. Ouch! His fastball velo is down so far this season.
Thanks for reading, and please visit SportsHubSTL.com for all of my columns and videos at my splendid new home.
– Bernie