MILWAUKEE — A mix of milestones ranging from the deeply personal to the potentially historic to the absolutely necessary merged together for the complete kind of game the Cardinals have promised.
Nolan Arenado’s first home run of the season reached the seats Saturday night for the 300th of his career, and that bolt helped launch the Cardinals toward a 6-0 victory Friday night against Milwaukee at American Family Field. The tidy, shiny, and significant round number comes just days ahead of the 10th anniversary of Arenado’s big league debut, and it highlighted the first game of the season that brought all aspects of the Cardinals’ team together.
They took an early lead.
They got power from Arenado and rookie Jordan Walker with his second career home run. Walker’s homer carried his hitting streak to eight games to start his career — a place only two other big leaguers have been at age 20 or younger.
And there was the notable, needed first for the 2023 Cardinals.
A quality start.
Jordan Montgomery held the Brewers to three hits and bedeviled them with his ability to juggle speeds. The lefty struck out nine in his seven scoreless innings, and eight games into the regular season the Cardinals’ rotation provided its first start of more than six innings and fewer than three runs allowed. The inability of starters to pitch deeper into games — they’ve averaged fewer than five innings a start in the first week — had already stretched the bullpen and contributed to the Cardinals’ constantly playing catch-up over the past week. When they took a lead in the first inning Saturday, it was their first since Sunday afternoon. Last Sunday afternoon.
A sellout crowd of 43,077 surrounded and eventually packed Milwaukee’s screwtop ballpark in part because of the coveted giveaway — a colorful “Brew Crew” basketball-style jersey featuring the name of one of the Brewers’ owners.
That owner just happens to also be a two-time NBA MVP: Giannis Antetokounmpo.
The crowd stirred in the bottom of the eighth once Montgomery (2-0) had left the game to the bullpen and the Brewers loaded the bases on lefty Zack Thompson. Two singles and a walk did it before St. Louis native and former Cardinal Luke Voit struck out on three pitches to end the inning. Thompson got him on a 77.5-mph curve diving out of the strike zone.
Arenado powers into 300 club
Sitting on 299 since the end of 2022, Arenado nearly had a career milestone two innings before he did. In the first inning of Saturday’s game at Milwaukee, Arenado drove a ball deep to left field — and it veered foul. In that at-bat he still got a sacrifice fly to nab the Cardinals’ first run of the weekend series.
In his next at-bat, he made personal history.
In the third inning, Arenado drilled a 1-0 change-up into the seats beyond left field for career home run No. 300. He is the 15th everyday third baseman to reach 300 home runs, all of whom have played in the past 70 years. Arenado’s 300 put him 16 shy of newly elected National Baseball Hall of Famer Scott Rolen.
Arenado is the seventh player to hit his 300th career homer as a member of the Cardinals, joining teammates Albert Pujols, who hit his 2008, and Paul Goldschmidt, who reached No. 300 this past season. The other four: Stan Musial (1955), Gary Gaetti (1996), Jim Edmonds (2004), and fellow third baseman Troy Glaus (2008), who retired with 320 homers.
As his two-run homer reached the seats Saturday, Arenado gave a fist pump and by the time he exchanged high fives with a gauntlet of teammates he was smiling with each step after his first homer of the season.
Monty burns the Brewers
Montgomery asserted control of the game early by retiring the first seven Brewers he faced. He pitched around a bases loaded mess in the third with help from three strikeouts, and then showed the stuff that has the Cardinals dreaming of the lefty’s potential for this season. In the fourth inning, Montgomery struck out the side by toggling between speeds. He would land a 95-mph four-seam fastball, followed by a 93-mph sinker. Off those he’d play a curveball in the low 80s and a cutter that hummed at the same speed as the sinker, but with a different bite.
All three of the batters in the fourth inning saw Montgomery’s mix of pitches, and still the at-bats ended the same way.
He got each of them swinging at a change-up.
Of the 100 pitches he threw, 61 were strikes and 29 of those were called strikes or whiffs.
Walker’s hit streak in elite company
Walker’s homer four batters after Arenado’s in the third inning extended the rookie’s hitting streak to eight games at the start of his career. In the past 120 years of Major League Baseball, there has been only one player as young as Walker to start his career with a hitting streak of eight games or more.
Ted Williams.
Yes, that Ted Williams.
In 1939, the Splendid Splinter debuted with Boston at age 20 years, 233 days. He had a double at Yankee Stadium, and over his next nine games went 14 for 40 (.350) with three homers and a 1.056 OPS. In 2023, Walker debuted at age 20 years, 312 days and singled at Busch Stadium. Through the fifth inning Saturday night, he was 11 for 31 (.359) with a .613 slugging percentage.
The longest streak by a rookie age 20 or younger to start his career in the majors is 12, set by Eddie Murphy in 1912 with the Philadelphia Athletics. When he debuted he was older than Walker — by a handful of days — making Williams the longest streak by a rookie younger than Walker. All three players made their debuts and had their hit streaks as right fielders.
Walker’s eight-game hitting streak is also one shy of tying the Cardinals’ record by a rookie to start his career. Magneuris Sierra had at least a hit in his first nine games in 2017.
The two-run shot Saturday over the left-field wall at American Family Field widened the Cardinals’ lead to six runs. Walker also singled in the fifth.
First lead in a week
The pair of homers in the third inning expanded the lead the Cardinals took from the beginning of Saturday’s game. Against a lefty like Eric Lauer, switch-hitters Tommy Edman and Dylan Carlson are likely to lead the Cardinals’ lineup, and their success from the right side of the plate continued with back-to-back singles to open the game.
Edman’s infield single and Carlson’s rope to left field put in motion the Cardinals’ first first-inning rally since Monday. When Edman scored on Arenado’s sacrifice fly, the Cardinals had their first lead in 36 innings.
They went the entire Atlanta series and Friday in Milwaukee without a lead.
Willson Contreras followed with a single to right that scored Carlson for a quick 2-0 lead before the Brewers had their chance to answer.
