Cards rack up 4 HRs, 14 hits: 'This is what we were expecting'

ST. LOUIS -- This kind of offense -- one that produced a season-best four home runs, tied previous highs in runs and hits and scored in seven of eight innings in Friday night’s 10-6 victory over the Red Sox at Busch Stadium -- is the one that Lars Nootbaar and Alec Burleson thought their Cardinals would have all season upon leaving Spring Training in late March.

What followed, of course, were massive offensive struggles that few saw coming and troubles that even plagued superstar Cardinals cornerstones Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt. Finally, after the team enjoyed something of a breakthrough offensively in Sunday’s win in Milwaukee, the hits have come in bunches ever since. Now Nootbaar and others feel like the Cardinals are starting to show just how potent of a team they can be at the plate.

“Guys haven’t felt good this season -- and that’s just the truth of the matter -- and guys haven’t felt like themselves, but when you look up and down our lineup, we have guys that everybody knows is going to produce,” said Nootbaar, who smashed a Statcast-projected 430-foot homer in the first inning. “It was just a matter of time. Tonight was the kind of night where you’re realizing, ‘All right, this is what we were expecting.’ It has that kind of potential.”

The potential the Cardinals showed on Friday was getting homers from Nolan Gorman, rookie Masyn Winn, Burleson and Nootbaar for their first four-home run game of the season. Not only did they match a season high with 14 hits, five different Cards had multiple hits, led by Arenado’s three singles and Brendan Donovan’s two doubles dumped down the left-field line. As a result of that, St. Louis answered two early rallies by the Red Sox.

“We just kept putting constant pressure on the other team and the other pitchers,” said Arenado, whose 3-for-5 night pushed his average to .268 following a recent drought. “That [Red Sox] starter [Brayan Bello] is really good, and he’s got a good arm, but we were able to lay off some tough pitches and then hit some balls hard. We put a lot of pressure on that team and we’re just trying to carry it on.”

The Cardinals have been able to carry their offensive production over since rallying from three runs down to beat the Brewers 4-3 on Sunday in Milwaukee. That victory capped a 10-game stretch where they scored just 28 runs. However, since that victory, the Cards have pushed across 29 runs in their past four games -- three of them victories. St. Louis’ turnaround has included five games with double-digit hits over the past six outings.

On Friday, manager Oliver Marmol continued to point back to how the Cards ended their series against Milwaukee as a potential turning point in the season, especially with his team’s embattled offense.

“That’s when I’d say we started to see some more competitive at-bats, guys came together and they’re stringing together quality at-bats,” Marmol said. “It carried into the next series, and it’s looked really good of late. They’re stubborn and they got to that [Red Sox] starter the way that we talked about.”

Stubborn might describe the Cardinals’ approach to sticking with Burleson, whose first full season in 2023 was marred by hard-hit balls right at defenders that left him little to show for his handling of the bat. This season started much the same for Burleson, but he has taken off after being moved into the No. 5 spot in the order following the devastating fractured forearm injury to catcher Willson Contreras, who played 10 games in that spot this season. While providing some left-handed protection to Goldschmidt and Arenado, Burleson has hit .304 with three home runs, four doubles and seven RBIs in May.

Including Friday’s fourth-inning homer and another two RBIs, Burleson is 13-for-33 (.394) since May 7, when Contreras went down after getting hit in the left forearm by J.D. Martinez’s bat. Burleson is just a small part, he said, of a Cardinals offense that is finally starting to show off just how dangerous it can be by getting production up and down the lineup and scoring runs in bunches.

“I keep saying it, but it feels like guys are starting to click,” said Burleson, who has multiple hits in three straight games for the first time in his MLB career. “Once one guy gets rolling, and then the next guy gains a little confidence. Then, that pressure to try and do it yourself goes away, and you are able to relax more in the box. You know the guy behind you is going to get it done. It’s definitely contagious, and you’re seeing that right now.”