Jordan Walker Shows Off his Power and Speed, but Cardinals Undone by Walks

· Yahoo Sports

Cardinals’ manager Oliver Marmol discusses the growth made this season by Jordan Walker, who leads MLB with eight homers.

ST. LOUIS – While Jordan Walker continued to swing the hottest, most prodigious bat in all of baseball, Cardinals pitchers also continued a disturbing trend by struggling to go deep into games.

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Walker increased his Major League lead in homers by smashing a long ball in his third straight game and a seventh homer in the past nine games on Monday night at Busch Stadium. However, it mattered little when lefty starter Matthew Liberatore wore down after a strong start and got beat up in a disastrous three-run fourth inning of the Guardians' 9-3 defeat of the Cardinals before a sparse crowd of 17,901.

In the rich history of the Cardinals, only sure-first, first-ballot Hall of Famer Albert Pujols has more home runs in the first 16 games of a season when he opened with 11 in 2006. Walker’s eight home runs in 16 games tie him with other Cardinals legends such as Stan Musial (1954), Mark McGwire (1998) and Scott Rolen (2004).

“I mean, that means a lot because those are the greats,” said Walker, whose 46 total bases are far and away the most in baseball through the first three weeks of the season. “You learn about those guys early on as soon as you come into the Cardinals’ organization, so to be put in with them, it’s pretty special.”

Liberatore, the club’s Opening Day starter and a standout early this season, threw first-pitch strikes to the first eight hitters he faced and allowed just three Guardians to reach over the first three innings. However, the game got away from him in the fourth when the first four hitters reached – two of them on uncharacteristic walks by Liberatore – and Cleveland scored three times in that game-turning inning.

Liberatore needed 34 pitches to get through the fourth inning, and he was gone after five innings, six hits, four earned runs, three walks and a fifth solo homer allowed. Combined with abbreviated outings from Kyle Leahy (four innings on Saturday) and Andre Pallanbte (five innings on Monday), Liberatore’s short stint further taxed a bullpen that has been overworked in recent days.  

“Obviously, I’m never trying to give (walks) up, but two or three in an inning is tough to cover up,” said Liberatore, who surrendered the 10th first-inning home run of his career – the most of any inning. “I’m definitely not trying to be careful, but I’m also not trying to serve them up a cookie. The goal is trying to execute one pitch at a time. I felt really, really good tonight again, but obviously the results didn’t show it again.”

Walker dazzles with his power and speed

Walker is getting plenty of results for the Cardinals and he has now homered in three straight games twice this season. He is the first Cardinals player 23 or younger to his seven homers in a nine-game stretch – and the first player in MLB to do that since Rays third baseman Junior Caminero did it from Aug. 6-26 last season.

On Monday, he ambushed Gavin Williams’ first pitch of the sixth inning and drilled a spinning sweeper 398 feet.

“We were down and that’s a good pitcher we were facing, so whatever he gives you to hit, you’ve got to jump on it early,” said Walker, who also extended his hitting streak to nine games. “That was the approach I was trying to take.”

The 6-foot-6, 245-pound Walker showed off his wide array of skills in the eighth inning when he used his elite speed to beat out a routine ground ball to Cleveland All-Star Jose Ramirez for an infield hit. That hustle gave Walker his team-best sixth multi-hit game of the young season.

“I think about the most thing in hitting is hiting a homer, but I like just putting my head down (on grounders) and trying to get down the line as fast as I can,” Walker said. “I hope (they underestimate his speed). I pride myself on staying athletic and trying to be speedy. That worked out for me today.”   

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