Walker ties Ted Williams with 9-game hitting streak to open career

MILWAUKEE -- Nine games into his MLB career and Cardinals blossoming star Jordan Walker still doesn’t know what it is like to go hitless at the game’s highest level.

Pushing a hit streak to nine games at the start of an MLB career while 20 years old or younger is something that only position players Eddie Murphy (12 games in 1912), Hall of Famer Ted Williams (nine games in 1939) and the young Cardinals star (2023) have accomplished in NL/AL history since 1900.

Walker, who is still 6-plus weeks shy of his 21st birthday, joined that exclusive club Sunday and tied a Cardinals franchise mark when he singled up the middle in his second at-bat of a 6-1 loss to the Brewers at American Family Field.

The 6-foot-6, 245-pound outfielder, who made the Cardinals roster without ever playing a game at Triple-A, exited Sunday batting .353 with two home runs and two doubles. For his only hit Sunday, Walker drove Freddy Peralta’s 82.3 mph slider up through the middle to plate Nolan Arenado and briefly pull the Cardinals within 2-1. Not only did the hit result in Walker’s eighth RBI, but it was also the 15th hard-hit (95 mph-plus) ball of his young career. Walker’s single left the bat at 108.3 mph, per Statcast.

Peralta, who was dominant over six innings of one-run ball, perfectly summed up what pitchers are up against when trying to retire Walker and his ability to reach almost any pitch across the plate.

"He's a big dude,” Peralta said. “As soon as I saw him at the plate I was like, 'My God!' I had no idea how to throw him. Like, I had a plan, but it's different when you're on the mound and you see him. I think he has a great feel to him. I was like, 'What am I going to do?' You can tell, his second AB, he got me with a slider, he hit it really hard. … He's looking good."

Walker also equaled Magneuris Sierra’s Cardinals record with the nine-game hitting streak to begin a career. Sierra had hits in his first nine MLB games with the Cardinals in 2017.

Walker said that he has given little thought to his hit streak, and his only wish was that it had led to more wins instead of a 3-6 stretch for the Redbirds.

“That’s pretty cool [to tie Williams and Murphy], but … I did want to win today and I’ll keep working to get some wins in the future,” said Walker, who is 12-for-34 in nine games. “Personally, I don’t want to think too much about [the hit streak]. It’s literally just doing my job at the plate. I go up with an approach and, depending on the situation, it could be a different approach every time. I don’t really think about the hit too much, really. I’m just trying to get the job done with whatever puts the team in the best scoring position.”

Walker, MLB Pipeline’s No. 2 ranked prospect, hit the second home run of his MLB career on Saturday -- a scorching line drive that left the bat at 110.4 mph. He came into Sunday in the 98th percentile in max exit velocity, the 93rd percentile in hard-hit percentage and 96th percentile in expected batting average.

Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol predicted that big things are ahead for the Cardinals' top prospect when he learns to get more balls into the air, especially considering how hard he continues to pound baseballs.

“He's willing to [work through that] process and he has awareness of it,” Marmol said of Walker working to improve the launch angle of the balls he hits. “[Saturday’s home run] is something, in my opinion, he'll continue to do more and more of, especially with how hard he hits balls.

“He finds the barrel, but he's also under control,” Marmol added. “They're not like these big swings; they're under control. But he's a very strong human.”

Walker’s best at-bat of the day might have come in the eighth inning when he battled back from an 0-2 count and drew a walk from Brewers reliever Matt Bush. Like most of Walker’s exploits over the past two weeks, the walk was an MLB first for the promising rookie.

“It just shows how much of a fight it is every at-bat,” Walker said of his first walk. “[Bush] had a good fastball and a good spin rate, which made the ball look hoppy. He got me with a few good spin-rate fastballs, and I was able to foul them off and then just try and get on base when I got down 0-2.”