Cardinals Patience Paying Off As Slugger Starts To Dominate

The St. Louis Cardinals made it clear heading into the 2025 Major League Baseball season that there was going to be a lot of opportunities for outfielder Jordan Walker.

He's a former top prospect for the team and is just 23 years old. Walker is in his third big league season. He had a very solid rookie year, but things have been inconsistent since. In 2023, Walker slashed .276/.342/.445 with 16 home runs, 51 RBIs, seven stolen bases, 19 doubles, two triples, and 51 runs scored in 117 games played.

There were high expectations heading into the 2024 season but his role was shaky at best. He struggled out of the gate and then the team sent him down to the minors. Over the course of the season, he went back and forth between the big leagues and minors a few times, although he spent most of the season in the minors.

The team has been clear that this year his role would be more consistent. Walker's defense in the outfield has made great strides but offensively, he was inconsistent early on. Things are starting to change, though. Over the last two weeks, he's started to turn a corner. Since May 14th, Walker is slashing .343/.343/.500 with one home run, nine RBIs, two doubles, and seven runs scored in 12 games.

Walker was slashing .180/.252/.246 before this recent hot streak. Now, he has gotten it all the way up to .214/.269/.312. The overall numbers still don't look great, but that's an almost 40-point jump in batting average in just two weeks. If he can keep this up, the Cardinals slugger will be just fine.