Walker makes sliding catch but has work remaining in outfield

ST. LOUIS -- Despite getting a late break and being positioned deep and swung around toward center field, Cardinals outfielder Jordan Walker scampered some 130 feet to his left, went to his knees near the foul line and hauled in the baseball just as second baseman Nolan Gorman streaked past.

The Cardinals are hopeful that in due time, the 6-foot-6, 245-pound Walker will make that same catch next time without nearly as much dramatics and without needing to get the knees of his pants grass-stained.

Despite making what appeared to be a highlight-worthy catch in the Cardinals’ 1-0 loss to the Rockies on Sunday, the play showed just how much ground Walker still has left to cover as an MLB outfielder. A closer look at the Statcast analytics revealed that Walker got a minus-5.9-foot jump on the play. Also, because of some of the uncertainty that remains with the routes he takes, his sprint speed topped out at 26.8 feet per second -- slightly below average by MLB standard [27.0 feet per second] and far from the 29.5 feet per second numbers the rookie phenom put up early in the season.

Yes, Walker still made the sliding catch, but the Cardinals hope that soon he won’t have to make a fly ball with 6.6 seconds of hang time and a 95 percent catch probability resemble a high-wire act.

“That one, I was playing nine to center [out of 10 in shading] and 10 back [depth], so I really wasn’t positioned well for that catch, and I had to go a long way,” said Walker, who had a starting depth of 335 feet, and he caught it at 247 feet. “Definitely, [in the future] that’s a catch I’ll make standing up if I can just get more of a quick head start on it. But, as of right now, I’m just trying to catch the ball, but sometimes I am a little bit slow, and that’s what happened on that one.”

Walker’s defensive work was one of the highlights on a day when the Cardinals left 15 runners on base -- their most since Aug. 3, 2018, at Pittsburgh -- and went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position. Their hitting struggles made former Cardinals left-hander Austin Gomber a winner and Zack Thompson a tough-luck loser. Used as an opener, Thompson regularly landed his curveball and racked up eight strikeouts in just four innings of one-run work.

“Growing up, through college and early in pro ball, I was [almost] always a starter and then I came up last year with an [MLB] opportunity out of the bullpen,” Thompson said. “Moving to the bullpen taught me a lot. Talking with [Adam Wainwright, he said] guys used to come up and learn how to pitch in those big spots out of the bullpen. Then, you can piece it together as a starter, and that’s the plan for myself.”

Similarly, Walker is trying to piece together his defensive skills as an outfielder after playing on the infield much of his youth and throughout most of his time in the Minor Leagues. Despite his unfamiliarity in the outfield, Walker made the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster and then made some Cardinals history with hits in his first 12 MLB games as a 20-year-old early in the season.

Despite a demotion to Triple-A to address his rising ground-ball rate, Walker’s offensive production has been steady throughout his first MLB season. On Wednesday, Walker (21.072) became the third-youngest player in franchise history with 10 home runs, trailing only Curt Flood (20.209 in 1958) and Rogers Hornsby (21.018 in 1917).

However, MLB defensive metrics haven’t been kind to Walker’s outfield play. Walker’s minus-11 Outs Above Average rank 256th out of 262 qualified fielders. The struggles have been across the board -- he’s a minus-4 to his left, a minus-3 to his right, a minus-3 coming in and a minus-1 going back.

To combat those numbers, Walker has been working daily before games with Cardinals Hall of Famer and assistant coach Willie McGee and fellow outfielder Alec Burleson. McGee mixes up the drills daily, and Walker is certain he’s a better outfielder now than he was at the beginning of the season.

“Yesterday, we did wall balls, getting under the ball and throwing home [from the outfield],” Walker said of the drills he does with McGee. “It’s different things he has in mind, and it’s based on something he might have seen earlier in the series. Willie’s really good about picking out what we need to work on. It’s nice to have [Burleson] out there, even though he doesn’t need the work as much as I do. But he helps me and supports me, and I’m not out there by myself.”