Midweek day ball, love it! The Cardinals and Nationals are about to put their three-game series in storage, and into the baseball-history files. Wednesday’s first pitch is scheduled for 3:05 St. Louis time. The winner takes the series. The loser must live with shame.
Baloney wagon Miles Mikolas starts for the Nationals in this finale. And if the Redbirds fail to bludgeon “Miles of Home Runs” Mikolas during the matinee, the St. Louis traveling party should be forced to ride a bus home from Washington D.C.
That’s about 820 miles of interstate travel. A real slog. A journey of aches and pains. That’s why these proud men who represent St. Louis must take aim at Mikolas with their Victus game-day bats and slug his smirk away.
If the Cardinals win this one, they’ll finish 3-3 on the road trip and will improve their season ledger to 7-5. This would be dandy! If the Cards lose, well, sorry, but a one-way ticket on the Greyhound from D.C. to STL can be purchased for as little as $135 per person.
I am kidding about the bus ride home.
If the former Cardinal shuts down the current Cardinals, then hitchhiking back to The Lou becomes an option.
OK, enough with my nonsense.
I’m here – again – to talk about The Tower of Power.
Mister Jordan Walker.
The Cardinals’ cranked up, dialed-in clean-up man did it again on Tuesday evening, homering for the third time in four games. Even if the Washington D.C. based Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum did not ask for the home-run ball, it was still a mighty fine blast.
Walker will get a chance to swing at the right-handed stylings of Mikolas, who has allowed the second-largest number of home runs (60) by a MLB pitcher since the start of the 2024 season. Walker got off to a slow start against righties this season but has batted .308 with a .538 slugging percentage against them in his last four games entering Wednesday.
After a brief downturn, Walker has returned to the power station. In the last two games at Detroit and the first two games at Washington, Walker has given some souvenirs to lucky fans by discharging three home runs in 17 at-bats. His seven hits over the four previous days cashed in eight RBIs.
Among the 73 big-league right-handed hitters that had logged at least 40 plate appearances through Tuesday, Walker was tied for second with four home runs, ranked third in RBIs (11), was situated fourth in slugging percentage (.650) and stood 6th in both OPS (1.014) and wOBA (.441).
In addition to his .300 batting average, Walker came into Wednesday with a wRC+ which translated into a hitting profile that was 82 percent above league average offensively.
I wanted to take a couple of minutes to put some other aspects of Walker’s power-ball hitting into a sharper perspective.
Walker hit five home runs in all of 2024, and six home runs over the full 2025 season. He’s already walloped four home runs in ‘26, and did so with only 40 at-bats.
Here’s another way to suss out Walker’s amazing improvement in the power game. I’ll use the number of home runs hit per 100 at-bats.
1. In 2024-25 combined, Walker’s rate of home runs per 100 at bats was a sad 2.09. This season has gone deep 10 times per 100 ABs.
2. In 2024-25, Walker averaged roughly one home run for every 50 trips to the plate. This year, so far, he’s clubbed a home run every 11 trips to the plate.
3. Through Tuesday, Walker’s current home-run frequency per 100 at-bats is 4.8 times higher than his combined average from the previous two years.
4. While Walker’s current HR/AB rate will almost certainly normalize over 162 games, what he’s done to this point is extraordinary when we measure it against the previous two seasons. In his first 11 games of 2026, Walker has already reached 36% of the total number of home runs he bashed over the past two years combined.
5. How about some Cardinals-only perspective on this? Please understand that I am fully aware that Walker’s home-run derby success has come in a very, very small slice of the entire 2026 season.
But a boy can have some fun, right? So I looked at the best individual HR rates by a Cardinal in a season since Bill DeWitt Jr. purchased the franchise before the 1996 season.
The Top 5 in order:
– In 1998, Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs and averaged 12.73 HRs per 100 at-bats.
– In 1999, McGwire sent 65 homers into orbit and averaged 12.48 homers per 100 ABs.
– In 2026 – small-sample! – Jordan Walker has four homers early on, and has a rate of 10.0 HRs per 100 at-bats.
– In 2006, Albert Pujols struck 49 home runs and averaged 9.18 HRs per 100 at-bats.
Early or not, it’s cool to see the name “Jordan Walker” right there in between “McGwire” and “Pujols.”
Before I close the laptop, let’s take a look at the most prolific home-run hitters in the majors so far in 2026. These rates are accurate through Tuesday and do not include anything that happened Wednesday.
* Drake Baldwin, A’s: 11 homers per 100 plate appearances, and 12.5 HRs per 100 at-bats.
* Shea Langeliers A’s: 10.42 homers per 100 PA, and 11.9 homers per 100 ABs.
* Chase DeLauter, Guardians: 10.2 homers per 100 PA, and 11.36 HRs per 100 ABs.
* Jordan Walker, Cardinals: 9.09 homers per 100 PA and 10.0 HRs per 100 at-bats.
At his current pace, Walker’s projected home-run total for the season is 59. That’s based on 648 plate appearances and 589 at-bats.
I don’t believe we’ll see a 59-homer barrage by Walker in 2026. But it’s fun to think about and talk about.
To be writing Jordan Walker and 59 home runs in the same sentence is a lot more interesting (and entertaining) than writing when will Jordan Walker be demoted to Triple A Memphis by the Cardinals?
FINALLY …
I want to repeat something I wrote earlier this week, just to make sure we understand why Walker is flying high with a more prolific home-run rate.
Yes, it’s the launch angle. And the reduction of ground balls. Let’s look at the last three seasons in order:
2024: launch angle 6.9°, ground-ball rate 48.5%, and 3.05 homers per 100 at-bats.
2025: launch angle 8.2°, ground-ball rate 51.2%, and 1.65 homers per 100 at-bats.
2026: launch angle 15.4°, ground-ball rate 34.7%, and 10.0 home runs per 100 at-bats.
In perfecting that 15.4° degree launch angle, Walker has found the so-called “sweet spot” for power hitters. By lifting the ball just 7° degrees to 8° degrees higher now, he’s converted those hard-hit grounders into moon shots.
A launch angle of 15° is the professional standard for maximizing the number of pitches a hitter can barrel. By getting a lift in his swing path, Walker is getting lift-off in his career, and we can see the clear evidence in his HR/100 at-bats rate that has more than quadrupled compared to his two previous seasons.
Thanks for reading …
– Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015. Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach. Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams. Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.