Cardinals ready to splash across the pond

This story was excerpted from John Denton’s Cardinals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox. With Denton traveling to London for the Cardinals’ upcoming games against the Cubs, Joe Trezza assisted in putting together this newsletter.

WASHINGTON -- Paul DeJong remembers watching from afar when the Yankees and Red Sox played the first regular-season MLB games in Europe in 2019, and he remembers witnessing the reception those teams received across the pond, the energy of international baseball and thinking of his contemporaries: “It seems like they’re having the time of their life.”

DeJong is excited to experience that feeling for himself this weekend when the Cardinals travel for the return of MLB’s London Series: a two-game set against their archrival Cubs beginning Saturday at 12 p.m. CT. The series will mark the Cardinals’ first international appearance since they faced Cincinnati in a two-game series in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2019.

“(The 2019 London Series) was loud and it was packed, so I think it’ll be a fun environment,” DeJong said. “As a civilian, I'm looking forward to seeing the architecture and the history of the city and just kind of all the old buildings. The culture shock, all those types of things. I want to see how their cuisine is. I’ll be a harsh critic about that one. As an athlete, I'm just excited to go and spread the game of baseball.”

The Cardinals and Cubs were scheduled to play in the 2020 MLB London Series, but those games were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Yankees-Red Sox games drew raucous crowds of 59,659 and 59,059, respectively. Everyone in the Cardinals’ traveling party is expecting another charged atmosphere to await them in what should be a singular weekend, win, lose or draw.

“I'm looking forward to it,” manager Oli Marmol said. “I've never been. I think it'll be a pretty cool experience for our players, and the families that are going as well. But also, just playing overseas will be cool. Just introducing, to some degree, our sport, in a meaningful way, and the rivalry between us and Chicago. Just overall, I think it'll be a pretty neat experience.”

What better way to introduce Cardinals baseball, or the Cardinals-Cubs rivalry, to a new audience than with Adam Wainwright on the mound? Wainwright will make his 49th career start against Chicago in Saturday’s opener. Only two pitchers in all of Cardinals history have matched up with the club’s archrival more.

No player in MLB history will have appeared in a regular-season game in as many countries as Paul Goldschmidt after this weekend, with England marking his fifth along with Australia, Mexico, Canada and the United States (according to research spearheaded by the Cardinals). For Lars Nootbaar, Tommy Edman and Andre Pallante, Europe will be the third continent they’ve played on this year, as all three also played in Asia during the WBC.

“It's gonna be a completely new experience,’ Nootbar said. “It’ll be cool, so I’m excited for it, for sure.”

The Cardinals are playing better as of late after a dreadful start, as they've won of four of six. The Cubs have won 10 of 12 and are coming off a three-game sweep of Pittsburgh.