I won’t say the obvious and stupid thing – “it’s only one game” – because I’ve never understood why authors and talkers feel obligated to always point that out.
What, do we think fans are incapable of understanding that MLB teams play 162 of these officially sanctioned competitions each season?
Like, just because the Cardinals are successful on opening day, we deem it necessary to talk down the fans who loved it by getting all haughty and declaring “Hey, people! It’s only ONE game, get it? The Cardinals didn’t clinch the division title or anything like that, so just calm yourselves down.”
(SHUT UP)
After watching their wayward ballclub meander to the No. 22 winning percentage among 30 teams over the 2023-2024 seasons, I think an impressive win in the first show of the new 162-game tour is something to appreciate. Let the people go crazy for a few delightful hours if they want. Spare us the lectures. Winning was not exactly a habit over the past two seasons. Not with a 154-170 record.
The Cardinals defeated the Twins 5-3 and did it with style. I don’t need to describe it to you. Most of you saw it. Many of you felt it. I trust that Cardinals fans loved it. The players looked fresh, invigorated, dedicated, fully locked in, and ready to rock. Oh yeah, and the boys didn’t hold back. They had FUN.
Manager Oli Marmol did a fine job of summing it up.
“I think that tone was set months ago, and we’re now going to be able to put it into action,” he said after the sunshine appeared on a cloudy day. “You can talk about all of these different words of being electric and bringing energy and relentlessness and then actually doing it? And they did exactly that.
“Running all over the field. Making plays. Stealing bases. Our at-bats like that is what a relentless at-bat looks like, one through nine.”
“When you have that mentality, one through nine, that’s putting the words into action,” the manager continued. “I felt like our at-bats and our style of play was exactly that.”
Right on. And I write on. I hope these displays of Baseball The Way It Oughta Be will be visibly frequent in 2025. As a fan/observer, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the Cardinals play a complete and all-around entertaining brand of ball Thursday at Busch Stadium. The weather may have been inclement, but the Cardinals were persistent. Let it rain, they don't care.
The Clydesdales clomped like only the Clydesdales can. The Red Jackets were there, standing as living proof of this franchise’s historical greatness. I'm thrilled by them all, but it was especially cool to see Joe Torre (age 84), Tony La Russa (80) and the "kid", Ted Simmons (75.) The three esteemed gentlemen have collectively dedicated approximately 135 years of their lives to major-league baseball in a wide range of capacities. Incredible. They are glory-days royalty. And when it was time to roll forward into a new adventure, the parade of Ford trucks delivered the 2025 Cardinals to the starting point of their journey.
The Cardinals took an early lead and never looked back – in this game or in 2023 and ‘24. This was a celebration of a new year, a much-needed renewal, and a long afternoon for being happy.
The clouds and the rain and ominous preseason forecasts couldn’t diminish the magnitude of a truly special occasion reserved for a singular stand-alone day on the St. Louis calendar: a return to a customary way of life in a place where baseball really, really matters.
THE THANK-YOU LIST FOR A BEAUTIFUL DAY
Lars Nootbaar: Helluva way for the new leadoff man to start off the lineup, start off the season. Singled, caused a balk, advanced to second, and scored the first run. Next time up: Bang. Two-run homer for a 3-0 lead. These were Nootbaar-created runs. He was the setup man, the delivery man. Making runs. Isn’t that what a leadoff man is supposed to do? Lars does this well.
In 400 career plate appearances at the No. 1 lineup spot, Nootbaar has put together an imposing profile: .358 on-base percentage, .458 slugging percentage, .816 OPS, 37 extra-base hits, and a wRC+ that’s 30 percent above league average.
Nolan Arenado: This was just about perfect. After months and months of trade speculation, ceaseless gossip, bloggers making up mindless junk, one famous trade veto, and waiting for the next call that could have led to moving time … well, whaddya know. Arenado was still here, still a Cardinal on his fifth opening day in the birds on the bat uniform. And he was loving it. He was having a ball. He was laughing with the young players. One of the most intense, stressed-out players in baseball was welcomed home with robust enthusiasm by the Cardinal fans. It was soothing to his soul.
Arenado discharged any remaining frustration by turning on a 97 mph bullet of a fastball to crank a 376-foot home run into the left field seats. This eighth-inning homecoming blast gave the Cardinals a 5-3 lead.
‘Nado sealed the home run by patting his heart as he looked at the fans during a loving curtain call. What a day. What a way to come back. Arenado sealed the victory, and he sealed his return to St. Louis with a kiss. This moment was St. Louis baseball at its finest.
Pitching and defense: Two essential, valuable areas that were significant factors in this 1-0 start to the season. Other than to say Cardinals hurlers gave up just three runs, eight hits, and three walks while striking out 11 – well, I’ll get to them later. But how about the defense? Center fielder Victor Scott ball-hawking a line drive in the right-center gap to save two runs and probably the game. Second baseman Brendan Donovan diving in the dirt (of course!) to start a fabulous 4-6-3 double play. First baseman Willson Contreras tracking a difficult foul ball that drifted over his head and far to his left. His radar mind located the target, and he snatched a challenging catch. And a nod to Jordan Walker, who looked pretty comfortable in right field.
A NEW TOP OF THE LINEUP, VOILA! The first four hitters in Marmol’s lineup – Nootbaar, Willson Contreras, Donovan, and Arenado – went a combined 6 for 16 (.375) with two homers, four runs batted in, and four runs scored. Contreras went 0 for 4, and if we extract those ABs, the other three dudes were 6 for 12 and produced all of the home-run, RBIs, runs-scored damage. I liked the way Marmol structured his lineup for the start of the season, and it was good to see it get the desired results in Game 1. Only 161 more to go.
BLAZING BULLPEN: The Cardinals had a killer bullpen in 2024, one of the best statistically in franchise history. Expecting the 2025 gang of relievers to deliver a hugely successful sequel – think Godfather Part II – is unrealistic. But in the first lead-protection test of the season, Cardinals relievers were unbreakable.
Five men wearing the home whites went to work with baseballs in their hands and malice in their hearts … and many Twins went down. Kyle Leahy, John King, Chris Roycroft, Phil Maton, and his eminence Ryan Helsley teamed to pitch four innings, allowed one run, and struck out 29.4 percent of 17 batters faced.
The tonsorial-minded Cards alum Harrison Bader had the verve to drill a two-out double off Helsley in the ninth – but the impervious closer left his former teammate standing there with no particular place to go. Helsley disposed of the perceived threat with a slider from hell that overwhelmed the poor Matt Wallner.
Over the final three (scoreless) innings, the triad of Roycroft/Maton/Helsley confronted 11 hitters and were damn ruthless about it, striking out five for a bad-boy 45.4% strikeout rate. Helsley erased three. Minnesota’s twins were no match for the STL triplets.
BEWARE THE LATE-INNING GUARD DOGS: Since the start of the 2024 season, the Cardinals are 65-4 (.942) when leading a game after seven innings and a pitiless 70-1 (.985) when holding the lead through eight innings. Is that good?
QUALITY AT-BATS AT LAST: The St. Louis hitters went against five different Minnesota pitchers and made them labor through 151 pitches. I like this stuff because sustained at-bats make pitchers sweat and can leave them extra vulnerable.
The Cardinals had:
Eight at-bats that lasted five pitches.
Four at-bats that lasted six pitches.
Four at-bats that endured through seven, eight, nine, or ten pitches.
Cards catcher Ivan Herrera worked a six-pitch double and a ten-pitch walk. And though Contreras went hitless on the day, he coaxed 22 pitches out of Minnesota-deployed arms in four at-bats. Contreras had impressive at-bats but didn’t get the reward. That’s baseball.
HOORAY FOR HERRERA: What a good opening game for this 24-year-old talent. Herrera had two hits, a walk, and an RBI in his four well-thought-out plate appearances. The dynamic feats of Nootbaar and Arenado understandably received the most attention for their awesome season-opening dramatics. But Herrera was fantastic.
JORDAN WALKER: Nice first game. Played well defensively. Had a hit. His attempted stolen base led to a throwing error that put him on third base for Noot’s homer. And in his final at-bat, Walker finessed a nine-pitch walk.
WAITIN’ ON A SONNY GRAY: The bottom-line performance was good: five innings pitched, four hits, two earned runs, a couple of walks, and six strikeouts. Gray was popped for a homer, but if you’re looking for the best part of his opening-day effort, it had to be his 30 percent strikeout rate. And Gray was deservedly credited for the win. But at the risk of sounding like a whiny, nitpicking reprobate, may I point out a couple of things? Thanks for indulging me. Gray’s average velocity on his 21 sinkers was 91.3 miles per hour, a drop from his 92.7 mph last season.
Did it matter in this instance? Not at all. It was an interesting performance. On one hand, the Twins ripped into Gray’s sinker for a 75 percent hard-hit rate and an average exit velocity of 99.2 mph. But on the other hand, the Twins were only 1 for 8 – with four strikeouts! – against Gray’s sinker. He yielded a solo home run on his sweeper, but it was the only dent on his most effective pitch during his 2023 and 2024 seasons.
On this opening day, Sonny Gray fit the traditional definition of the phrase “wily veteran.” He’s a fascinating pitcher who has that late-career Adam Wainwright thing going: using his guile and some wizardry to frustrate hitters with his resourcefulness.
GIVE THAT MAN A BUSCH: One other thing about Sonny Douglas Gray: he sure loves pitching at Busch Stadium. It’s been a fortress for him over the last two seasons. Since signing with the Cardinals, Gray has a 2.83 ERA and a 29.8% strikeout rate at Busch – and has been mussed for just a .209 average, .258 on-base percentage, and .319 slug.
Gray got beat up often in his 2024 road starts – 5.20 ERA and 16 home runs. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised when Gray said “no thanks” to the idea of waiving his no-trade clause after last season. Busch Stadium is his home and his haven. In his 17 starts there as a Cardinal, Gray has conceded three runs or fewer 14 times. That includes 12 starts of giving up two or fewer runs.
GAME MANAGEMENT: I do not wish to raise your blood pressure by offering the St. Louis manager a compliment, but Marmol did a fine piece of maneuvering with the Cardinals trying to preserve a lead. In the bottom of the eighth, Ivan Herrera walked. Marmol inserted pinch runner Michael Siani, who stayed in the game to replace Walker in right field. And Pedro Pages took over at catcher. These moves were not essential to the triumph, but I appreciate smart skippering under any circumstances. The moves, though obvious, offered a glimpse of how Marmol will likely handle these types of scenarios in 2025. As I mentioned earlier, the “reset” of Marmol’s lineup worked as hoped.
STAT BOY IS HERE: The Cardinals went 3 for 11 with runners in scoring position (.273), and the RISP damage came early and was significant. The RISP highlights: Donovan gave the Cards a 1-0 lead by singling in the first to drive in Nootbaar. Noot clubbed a two-run homer in the second to make it 3-0, and Herrera had an RBI single to make it 4-0 in the third. The Cardinals plated four runs in these RISP tests. Last season, the Cardinals ranked 29th among the 30 teams with their .229 average with runners in scoring position and had four or more RISP runs batted in only 18 percent of their games.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It’s going to take all 26 of us to win games here,” Gray said. “If you look at ‘what are the Cardinals’ and ‘who are the St. Louis Cardinals,’ I think that game can embody who we are and who we want to be.”
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy your weekend.
–Bernie