Cardinals look to a bright future with more Jordan Walker heroics, clutch performances

Earlier this summer, the Cardinals’ front office made the shrewd yet tough-to-swallow decision to trade players and turn its energy and resources toward next season.

For the Cardinals players and staff in uniform, they’ve had to adopt the mindset that playing out the string is only fruitless if they’re not planting the seeds for a contending team next season.

Well, there might not be a better example of wins today that the Cardinals hope will blossom into wins tomorrow than rookie outfielder Jordan Walker lifting the team to victory with the deciding home run in the eighth inning of a 6-5 win over the defending National League champion Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday afternoon at Busch Stadium.

In a season that has fallen short of expectations, the Cardinals (66-83) are counting on days like these to help players such as Walker along the way to realizing their potential.

People are also reading…

“He’s definitely on a path to be great,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of Walker. “He’s going to help us win for a long time.”

For a veteran player such as Paul Goldschmidt, a former MVP, there’s value in taking as many lessons from this season that can help him and the team perform better next year. In the case of starting pitcher Dakota Hudson, he can’t afford to squander any chance to make his case that he can be a viable piece of a contending team.

All three played key roles as the Cardinals avoided being swept in the three-game series as well as the season series with the Phillies (81-68).

The Cardinals’ Paul Goldschmidt, right, is congratulated by teammate Alec Burleson after hitting a solo homer in the fifth inning of a game against Philadelphia on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, at Busch Stadium.

Robert Cohen, Post-Dispatch

The Cardinals certainly let some doubt creep in when relief pitchers Giovanny Gallegos and John King gave up one run apiece in the top half of the eighth inning. Those runs turned a two-run Cardinals advantage into a tie game.

That’s when Walker made his impact felt with his bat.

Walker now has five game-winning RBIs this season. He also has hit three home runs in “late and close” situations this season (late close is defined as the seventh inning or later and the team batting is leading by a run, tied, or has the tying run on base, at bat, or on deck).

“I think what I need to tell myself is not to do too much,” Walker said of those potential game-changing situations. “If you put the right swing on the ball, the ball will go. But I don’t need to over-swing to do anything like that.

“I really just focus on trying to get on base. We’re down and out, but it’s a tie ball game. My job is to get on base so the next person can knock me in. If a home run happens, that’s great, but the main focus is trying to get on base and trying to let your team get you in to score.”

With two outs, the bases empty and Phillies right-handed reliever Seranthony Dominguez on the mound, Walker bashed a 98-mph 0-1 sinker 400 feet away into the left-field stands for his 16th home run of the season.

“Experience is everything,” Walker said. “The first time going into a big spot, the nerves are there. I’m not going to lie. They’re going to be there, but I feel like time after time again just seeing those big situations, failing from it — because I have failed in the big situations as well — you learn a little bit of something. Now, actually succeeding in it makes it all the more better.”

Goldschmidt (2-for-4, home run, double, three RBIs) carried most of the offensive burden in the game for the Cardinals. His two-out, two-run double in the third inning gave the Cardinals their first runs and first lead of the day. He came around to score on Nolan Arenado’s double to cap a three-run inning.

Catcher Andrew Knizner (2-for-3, one run) and Arenado (2-for-4, two RBIs) also had multi-hit games.

After the Phillies tied the score in the fourth inning, Goldschmidt’s solo homer in the fifth inning gave them the lead again. Arenado tacked on an RBI single to make it a 5-3 advantage in that frame. It stayed that way until the top of the eighth.

Goldschmidt, who turned 36 earlier in the month, has been one of the veterans that Marmol said has campaigned to remain in the lineup every day down the stretch despite the team having been out of realistic playoff contention for weeks. Marmol and the coaching staff had to convince him to take a day off during the recent nine-day road trip.

“The coaches have asked us to play like we’re going for the playoffs, and part of that is playing every day,” Goldschmidt said. “You definitely take pride in being able to suit up and go out there and perform. It’s finding any motivation you can to want to go out there and play well. It’s what we’re paid to do, go play every day. I’ve always wanted to do that. That competitiveness, of course, takes over.”

Asked about the importance of continuing to play well this season with the club out of contention, Goldschmidt said there’s value in learning from mistakes, individually and collectively. Especially, if that leads to success next season.

Goldschmidt hopes that he’ll look back on this season and be glad that it happened because it exposed things and forced him and his teammates to make fixes now that put them in that much of a better position in 2024.

“We’ve got young players,” Goldschmidt said. “Sometimes this is their first year, sometimes second or third. We do have to take a little bit of a long-term view, but we want to be ready to go for next year.

“So if there’s stuff that can be done in these last couple weeks that will help us as individuals or as a team for next year, of course we’re trying to do that.”

Hudson serves as an example of another player treating the season’s final weeks as vital to his future. The 29-year-old groundball specialist spent the majority of this season at Triple-A where he had up-and-down results and dealt with injury.

Since being inserted into the Cardinals rotation, Hudson has gone 5-2. He also had one win in relief.

Hudson struggled against some of the more stout lineups he faced, including the Phillies. In a start against the Phillies in Philadelphia on Aug. 26, Hudson gave up five runs on six hits, including a home run, and five walks. The Cardinals lost that game 12-1.

Sunday, Hudson allowed three runs on five hits and three walks in five innings. He also struck out three batters.

Hudson threw 66 pitches, and he faced each of the top four batters in the Phillies lineup — Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, Bryce Harper and Alec Bohm — three times before he turned the game over to the Cardinals relief corps.

The Cardinals’ Jordan Walker runs the bases on his solo homer in the eighth inning that broke a 5-5 tie and sent his team to a 6-5 victory over the Phillies on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2023, at Busch Stadium.

Robert Cohen, Post-Dispatch

Harper, a two-time NL MVP, was the only one to reach base twice against Hudson. Harper walked twice and lined a double against Hudson.

All three of the runs Hudson allowed came in the fourth inning, a frame that included a pair of defensive miscues on potential double-play opportunities.

“Winning is what we’re here to do in the big leagues,” Hudson said. “And it’s good to get back here at home and get a win back from them because I hate walking away from somebody else’s stadium and not be walking out with a win.

“I felt like we played really good today, and I felt like I was able to put a little bit of redemption in there. Still got to get Harper though. I may end up throwing knuckleballs to that guy. I don’t know.”

Sports columnists Jeff Gordon and Ben Frederickson discuss how the race to make the postseason in the National League has become must-see TV. The Cardinals have no place in it, but they can pull the rug out from beneath other teams with a feisty finish.

Ben Frederickson ,  Jeff Gordon ,  Christine Tannous

A nightly look at the day’s top sports stories, and a first look at the topics St. Louis fans will be talking about tomorrow.