Cards' versatility pays off as Carlson mashes two homers

WASHINGTON -- With seven healthy outfielders and decisions to make daily about deploying the most advantageous combinations, manager Oliver Marmol can almost line shift his starting lineup based on what he’s looking to prioritize on a particular night.

On Monday, it was defense. Tuesday? Platoon splits/matchups. Marmol turned over two-thirds of his outfield to start against left-hander MacKenzie Gore, and it paid off. Dylan Carlson homered twice to back seven strong innings from Jordan Montgomery, and the Cardinals cruised to their fourth straight win, a 9-3 victory over the Nationals at Nationals Park.

“Sometimes you have to have confidence before things start to go your way, and this group has been trying that for a while now, and they haven’t gotten it, so it’s good to be able to see them get rewarded,” Marmol said. “We’re in a really good spot right now. We really are. Mentally, physically, the guys are feeling pretty good.”

Carlson seems the likely candidate to have playing time squeezed with Tommy Edman playing well in center field and Lars Nootbaar’s return from injury this week. Carlson responded Tuesday with his first multi-homer game since Sept. 30, 2021, tagging Gore for a two-run 445-foot shot in the second to open the scoring and adding a solo homer off Gore in the sixth.

Carlson’s first homer marked the longest hit at Nationals Park this season, landing near the grass “W” logo etched into the batter’s eye beyond the center-field wall.

“Really good, and it’s something he can build off,” Marmol said. “This is a guy who plays really nice defense for us. An offensive day like this is good to see.”

It was indicative of the thump the Cardinals can expect from a healthy Carlson, who slugged 18 homers as a 22-year-old rookie in 2021 but watched that total slide to eight amid injuries last season. He’s now hit five, along with a .246/.327/.415 slash line, in 42 games this season. Though Tuesday’s homers were his first two right-handed this season, the switch-hitting Carlson is historically much more productive against left-handed pitching.

“Being a switch-hitter, it’s two different swings and, honestly, two different brains almost,” Carlson said. “It's definitely nice when they're both going at the same time. But that's just part of it, that give and take and being able to kind of ride that roller coaster.”

It’ll be up to Marmol to maximize specific skill sets like that with so many options for a finite number of spots every night; in this way, the versatility of guys like Edman (who has played center, right, short and second this season) and Brendan Donovan (who has played left, right, first, second, third and short this season) helps. That almost all his primary outfield options are playing well might make finding reps for everyone difficult, but for the Cardinals, that’s a good problem to have as they look to turn their season around.

“The challenge is keeping them all sharp, and that's something that we're gonna map out well,” Marmol said. “Our goal is to keep them all sharp and not have one guy just sitting for a while.”

The Cardinals put together one of their better wins of the season in the opener of this series while highlighting the merits of what might be their best defensive alignment: Nootbaar in right, Edman in center and Donovan in left. On Tuesday, they proved why running it out there every night isn’t so simple.

Carlson is a strong defender, but his value is negated at the corners, and with Paul DeJong excelling defensively at short, Marmol penciling in Edman in center seems to be more of a constant than who starts on either side of him. On Tuesday against a left-hander like Gore, the calculus shifted. Carlson started over Nootbaar in right with Donovan moved to second base for right-handed-hitting Jordan Walker in left.

The heavily right-handed Cardinals lineup bashed the Nationals for 14 hits, with Walker extending his now career-high 13 game hit streak in the process. That’s the longest by a Cardinals rookie since Albert Pujols had a 17-game streak in 2001.

“It's true that they're all performing at the moment,” Marmol said. “I'll take it.”