'When he's hot, he's hot': Gorman (2 HRs) continues power show

HOUSTON -- Nolan Gorman continued his impressive power display on Monday night, and Alec Burleson joined him for a second straight game.

Gorman homered twice and Burleson hit a solo home run in the Cardinals’ 7-4 loss to the Astros at Minute Maid Park.

Gorman has three home runs in his past two games and nine in his past 19, and he leads the team with 13 homers this season. It was his second multihomer game of the season.

“Just trying to keep things simple and look for good pitches to hit and get a good swing off,” Gorman said of his approach.

Gorman’s nine home runs since May 10 lead the National League, and his five home runs on the Cardinals’ current road trip are tied with the Astros’ Alex Bregman for the most in the Majors since the trip began on May 27.

Gorman said he has not changed his approach at the plate.

“Just kind of diving a little bit more into what I want to see and sticking to that really,” he said.

Gorman’s solo shot in the first, a Statcast-projected 407-foot homer to right-center, left his bat at 106.1 mph. It was also the 200th hit of his career. His second homer in the fifth, a 397-foot shot to right-center, left the bat at 103.4 mph.

“When he’s hot, he’s hot,” Burleson said of Gorman. “When he’s seeing the ball well, when he’s feeling confident in his swing and when he’s just confident in his swing, he can do a lot of damage, and that’s what you’re seeing right now.”

Burleson got the power display started with a solo home run to right in the first, two batters before Gorman’s first blast.

“I’ve gotten some good swings off,” Burleson said. “I lined out a few times. I just feel like I’m dialed in on the heater.”

Burleson homered in consecutive games for the second time in his career and the first time this season.

St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said both Gorman and Burleson are “swinging the bat really well.”

“Gorman’s starting to feel really good about where he’s at,” Marmol said. “He’s balanced. He’s finding barrel. Burleson is taking very professional at-bats. He’s hitting the ball all over the park. A lot of his outs are lineouts, which is what you want to see out of a hitter like him. He’s impacting the baseball and is doing a really good job.”

The three Cardinals homers came off Astros starter Justin Verlander.

“It’s cool because I grew up watching him play and pitch,” Gorman said. “Obviously, he’s had a tremendous career, [expected] Hall of Famer, so it’s pretty cool to do it off him. He’s a great pitcher, still.”

Nolan Arenado had an RBI double for the Redbirds in the third, and St. Louis built leads of 3-0 after the third and 4-2 after the fifth.

“What a job by the offense to get to [Verlander] tonight,” Cardinals starter Kyle Gibson said. “Everybody knows his stuff is really, really good. We put a lot of really good swings on him tonight. It was probably not something he normally sees.”

Gibson allowed three runs on five hits and three walks with eight strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings. He surrendered three runs or fewer for the third straight start and the ninth time in 12 starts this season.

“Gibby was good,” Marmol said. “On the ground a ton. He made pitches. That sweeper’s been a really good pitch for him. It was really good for him today. The curveball he landed well. Overall, he’s a pitcher. He executes well.”

Entering in the sixth with a 4-3 lead and the bases loaded, reliever Andrew Kittredge helped St. Louis escape the jam by inducing a two-out groundout from Yainer Diaz.

After the Cardinals’ bullpen threw six scoreless innings against the Phillies on Sunday night, the Astros got to JoJo Romero on Monday night, tagging the left-hander for four runs (three earned) in the eighth.

Having used Kittredge to get out of the sixth and for two outs in seventh, Marmol said he went with Romero to get one out in the seventh and to try to get through the eighth due to his experience, with rookies Kyle Leahy and Ryan Loutos as the only other pitchers available.

“Bullpen’s been really good, and some of these guys are going to have nights like that,” Marmol said. “You can’t blame them for it. They’ve competed extremely well. JoJo’s been really good for us. He had a tough night.”