'We’ve been getting hot': Cards hit four homers again in win

ATLANTA -- MLB’s first team to 90 victories, the Braves have rolled much of the season by leading all of baseball with a .275 average, 263 home runs and 768 RBIs before Wednesday’s action.

The Cardinals got an early peek at what was to come this season from the Braves, getting swept at Busch Stadium by Atlanta over a three-game series from April 3-5. Not only did the Braves outscore the Redbirds, 17-7, that series, they mashed six home runs to send the Cardinals reeling.

Now, six months later with the Braves charging toward potentially locking up baseball’s best record and the National League’s top postseason seed and the Cardinals on pace for their first 90-loss season since 1978, St. Louis has incredibly flipped the script on Atlanta.

A night after winning and putting up 10 runs, pounding out 12 hits and four home runs against Atlanta, the Cardinals battered NL Cy Young Award candidate, Spencer Strider, for six early runs and hit four home runs throughout an 11-6 beating of the homer-happy Braves at Truist Park.

“Their offense is probably the best in the league and maybe the best we’ve seen in years or decades, or even longer than that,” said Paul Goldschmidt, who smacked a two-run home run seven pitches into the game against Strider. “As a fan of the game, it’s really impressive what those [Braves] guys do. Fortunately, we’ve been able to do some similar things on offense.

“[Cardinals pitchers] have limited the damage because that’s all you can really hope to do versus those [Braves] guys. They’re going to score some runs, but we haven’t given them free passes, extra outs or extra baserunners, and it’s led to a couple of victories. Hopefully, we can do it again tomorrow.”

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The Cardinals scored 10-plus runs in consecutive games for the first time since Sept. 12-13, 2019, in Colorado and at home against the Brewers. The fact that St. Louis did it on Wednesday against Strider -- who was bidding to become the game’s first 17-game winner -- made the feat even more impressive.

“That’s a really good club across the way and even when you have a five-run lead, you don’t feel good about it and you need to continue to add on and punch back because you know they’re coming,” Cards manager Oliver Marmol said. “I feel like our guys had a really good approach from the very beginning against their starter. One-through-nine, we did a really, really good job.”

Once up 6-0 and 7-2 following rookie shortstop Masyn Winn’s first MLB home run, the Cardinals saw their worst nightmares coming true in the sixth inning after the Braves clawed back to make the score, 7-5, with NL MVP candidate Ronald Acuña Jr. at the plate. However, journeyman reliever Casey Lawrence continued to show the grit and strike-throwing the Cards have been impressed by and got Acuña to ground into an inning-ending double play.

“I mean, I just want to keep the ball on the ground and give our defense a chance,” Lawrence said. “We’re pretty good across the board [defensively] on the infield, and I knew my chances were pretty high if I could just keep him on the ground. One squeaked through [on a hit by Michael Harris II], and I wasn’t happy about that, but I was able to rebound and get [an out] versus Acuña.”

As they have over the past two nights, the Cardinals answered each Braves rally with long balls of their own. Willson Contreras smashed his 17th home run in the seventh inning, and lefty slugger Nolan Gorman pounced on an 0-2 slider in the middle of the plate for his 27th home run. Gorman took over sole possession of the team lead in home runs with his three clouts in the past two nights.

“That was a really big at-bat [by Gorman] to get those insurance runs for a lot of reasons,” Marmol said. “Up and down the lineup, I think we punched back really well and quite a bit.”

The Cardinals came into Wednesday having scored 305 of their 625 runs (48.8 percent) off home run balls. To put that into perspective, the Braves had scored 424 of 795 (53.3 percent) off long balls. On Wednesday, the Redbirds pushed across seven of their 11 runs via homers and fed the Braves a taste of their own medicine.

“It’s super cool what our offense is doing,” said Winn, who got the postgame ride into the shower where he had juices and condiments poured over him to celebrate his first MLB homer. “Personally, I’ve been struggling, and as a whole, we’ve been struggling. But these last couple of games we’ve been getting hot. Putting up runs like we have has been great for us.”