Young Cards can't be stopped in blowout win

ST. LOUIS -- Jordan Walker swung at the first two pitches Madison Bumgarner threw him, both of which were 76 mph curveballs.

The first was a ball near his left knee, and Walker swung right over the top of it. The second was a strike which he hit relatively hard, but directly at shortstop Geraldo Perdomo for an out.

The next time Bumgarner threw him a breaking ball for a strike, Walker knew what to do with it. The Cardinals’ 20-year-old uber-prospect swung his long arms and cracked a 104.3 mph single up the middle to drive in a run in the Cards’ 14-5 win over the D-backs on Wednesday afternoon at Busch Stadium.

Walker has been dealing with a steady supply of breaking pitches less than three weeks into his Major League career, which isn't surprising considering he’s a six-foot-six-inch power hitter. How he handles the latest approach from opposing teams could go a long way to determining what kind of rookie year he’ll have.

They’re certainly not going to stop throwing him curveballs and sliders unless he shows he can hit them, and Walker was 1-for-17 on the homestand before that RBI single. He added another single in the fifth inning.

“He got a steady dose of them at the end of Spring Training, too, and he took a couple of them at over 100 mph up the middle with really good swings,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “Now it’s about recognizing which to do that with and which to lay off. This is a guy with a high aptitude and good skill set. That combination usually pans out.”

Walker spent much of his off-day on Tuesday working with hitting coach Turner Ward on dealing with breaking balls. Specifically, he was having trouble staying back on slow, spinning pitches.

“It’s not always having to swing at it even though I do see it early,” Walker said. “It’s about putting yourself in a great hitting position.”

The early part of this season has offered up plenty of learning opportunities for a Cardinals team that has as many young position players in key lineup spots as at any time in a decade or more. Wednesday offered some evidence that their learning curve is beginning to climb skyward.

Fifth-year player Tommy Edman, still only 27, was the star of Wednesday’s game. He had the biggest swing of the day, a three-run home run off Bumgarner in the third inning. Edman entered the contest with a .241 batting average and just two RBIs. He had an earlier double and later added a two-run triple. His five RBIs on Wednesday were a career best.

Edman was also bidding to become the first player to hit for the cycle at the 17-year-old new Busch Stadium, but he was left standing on deck at the end of the eighth inning when Andrew Knizner struck out swinging.

Most of the switch-hitter's best work comes while batting right-handed. After Wednesday's performance, Edman is 9-for-12 with two home runs and four RBIs this season while batting righty vs. a left-hander.

Similarly, fourth-year pro Dylan Carlson was off to a rocky .212 start to his season before he cracked an RBI double to left-center to drive in the game’s first run, one of his two hits on the day.

Nolan Gorman, 22, later provided a 417-foot grand slam off reliever Peter Solomon to truly seal the victory. It was Gorman’s first Major League hit with the bases loaded.

Coming out of spring training, the Cardinals thought they would have one of the most powerful, versatile young lineups in the game, anchored by veterans Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado. It hasn't played out that way in the early going, as issues hitting in the clutch and a temporary lack of power left them in a rut out of the gate. After averaging more than 7.3 runs per game in the opening series vs. the Blue Jays, St. Louis was averaging 3.6 runs per game since.

Wednesday was the Cardinals’ highest-scoring game of the season. They rank eighth in MLB in runs scored (91), third in OPS (.795) and seventh in home runs (23), all perfectly solid numbers, but not to the level they expected.

“That was what our offense is capable of doing every single game,” Marmol said.

They won’t face favorable pitching matchups often this season given the league’s glut of hard-throwing young arms, but Wednesday’s power show -- four doubles, a triple and two home runs -- could get them going as they head into a West Coast road trip that begins Friday night in Seattle.

“We keep making adjustments day in and day out, and today we showed up early with a lot of energy wanting to win a game," catcher Willson Contreras said. "And we did it today."