Walker hits 3rd homer in 4 games as Cards rally late, top Nats in extras

No one could have predicted how hot a start Jordan Walker would have at the plate this year. And now he’s quickly reminding the Cardinals why they were so head over heels for him just a few seasons ago.

Walker smashed his 109.1 mph home run to right-center field of Nationals Park on Tuesday night in the Cardinals' 7-6 win over Washington, his third big fly in his last four games. The other two blasts came from him mashing a monster opposite-field home run that looked as effortless as humanly possible the day prior, and slugging his first career grand slam on Saturday that flew a Statcast-projected 459 feet, the longest of his career.

The 23-year-old had just six home runs in 111 games in 2025, but already has four in his first 11 games this year.

No one has questioned Walker’s ability to crush baseballs; the problem for him has been far too many of them being fired straight into the dirt for a simple groundout, if he even made contact at all. Through the early parts of this season, though, he is sending balls sizzling through the outfield air left and right.

Now, whenever Walker steps up to the plate, you almost expect him to do damage. He exudes confidence at the plate with his peaceful demeanor, and he rarely looks overmatched or is caught guessing by opposing pitching. It almost feels like a case of Jekyll and Hyde to compare him to the player we even saw back in Spring Training, let alone the last two seasons.

The numbers back up that eye test. He’s barreling the baseball far more often (25% in 2026 compared to 10.9% in '25), has cut down on the pitches he swings at outside of the zone significantly (26.4% in 2026 compared to 34.1% in '25), and has even seen an uptick in his average bat speed (77 mph in 2026 compared to 76.4 mph in '25). Early-season results have to be taken with a grain of salt, but when they are backed up by clear improvements in approach and process, it becomes far more believable that the production can remain.

Walker isn’t just finding success with the long ball; he looks like a far more confident and balanced hitter at the plate than we’ve seen at any point in his big league career, slashing .300/.364/.650 to begin the season. He’s also managed to make winning plays in the outfield, providing two outfield assists thus far and making better reads on fly balls that used to give him trouble.

With each blast off of Walker’s bat early in the year, the outlook of the Cardinals’ rebuild begins to feel even brighter. The Cardinals already have a talented trio at the top of their lineup in JJ Wetherholt, Iván Herrera and Alec Burleson, but Walker’s potential still outranks each of those bats.

For Cardinals fans who are used to judging the club purely on the win-loss column, the barometer for success this season has far more to do with the development of their talented youngsters than if they beat the Nationals on a weeknight. I know that goes against every grain of a Cardinals fan’s DNA, but that’s where the organization finds itself right now.

The Cardinals were at risk of dropping another disappointing contest on Tuesday, but a clutch home run from Nathan Church in the top of the eighth after coming off the bench to pinch-run in the sixth tied it for St. Louis, and Thomas Saggese gave the Cardinals the lead in the top of the 10th with an RBI double to center field. Wetherholt put the nail in the coffin with his own RBI double later in the inning. This was the Cardinals' fifth comeback victory already this season.

Maybe don’t do any victory laps quite yet on Walker’s resurgent 2026 season, but it’s hard not to be extremely encouraged by what we’ve seen so far.