The St. Louis Cardinals went .500 on their first road trip of the season, which, compared to last season, is a good sign. On the first trip of last season, the Cardinals went 1-5, dropping two games in extra innings and overall looking lost away from Busch Stadium. That trend would continue on the road as the Redbirds went 34-47 in road games last season, while they were 44-37 at home.
A large part of the team's success on the road was Jordan Walker’s four home runs. Walker, who has struggled to get going at the major league level since being called up in 2023, is off to a blazing start this season. The Cardinal right fielder is slashing .295/.367/.682, and has dropped his ground ball rate by 10% from last season in the early going. He is also using the opposite field nearly 10% more than he did in his first three seasons in the major leagues.
This production from Walker is exactly what the Cardinals were missing in the heart of their order. On the road, with Masyn Winn missing time due to hip soreness, which he attributed to “overswinging” and not his car accident following his walk-off winner against the Mets, according to Derrick Goold of the STL Post-Dispatch, Walker found himself in the cleanup spot for St. Louis. He thrived, hitting .294 with three home runs and a 1.192 OPS in the fourth spot in the order.
While Walker explodes, the bullpen implodes. Cardinals' relievers blew a three-run lead in the eighth inning in the series opener against the Washington Nationals, and that was not the only time on the trip the bullpen pitched the Cardinals out of the game. When the Cardinals’ offense put up six runs against the Detroit Tigers, the pitching staff was put in a bind as Dustin May let up seven earned across 3.1 innings of work, and every reliever afterwards would allow at least one earned run. Walker’s grand slam that really got him started on the road trip was all for nothing, as the Cardinals' pitching staff was unable to keep the gap tight to give the Cardinals a chance at making another comeback victory. While JoJo Romero, Riley O’Brien, and Gordon Graceffo have been a solid trio, manager Oliver Marmol can only call on them so often with little rest before injury concerns take over.
Maybe the answer is in the minor leagues. Depending on when Hunter Dobbins returns from his rehab stint and how the next couple of turns through the rotation go, the Cardinals could take Kyle Leahy and put him back into the bullpen as the main arm in the middle innings of games, a role he thrived in last season. Unless the bullpen corrects course, this could be an option that the Cardinals consider when Dobbins is ready to make his return to the major league mound.
The Cardinals look to continue their success at home against the Boston Red Sox over the weekend, which will see the return of Willson Contreras to Busch Stadium, along with Sonny Gray, although he is not scheduled to start against the Cardinals, and Dustin May will face his former team on Friday night as the second home stand of the season kicks off.