ST. LOUIS -- Alec Burleson felt compelled to apologize to reporters gathered around his locker.
He just wasn’t able to exude the same level of jubilance that he and his Cardinals teammates had demonstrated on the field and in the Busch Stadium dugout during an eight-run bottom of the sixth inning on Thursday -- a rally that flipped a six-run deficit on its head in an emphatic Opening Day win for the Cardinals, who beat the Rays, 9-7.
“Sorry for whispering,” Burleson said. “My voice is gone.”
The top of the sixth inning was a real slog for Cardinals pitching, as three St. Louis relievers combined to allow six Tampa Bay runs.
But before the bottom of that same frame had concluded, the Cardinals' new-look offense had its say.
Per the Elias Sports Bureau, it's only the second time both teams scored six or more runs in an inning on Opening Day. The Boston Beaneaters and Brooklyn Bridegrooms did so on April 19, 1890.
Burleson led off the onslaught with an unassuming single to right field, but he punctuated it with a majestic two-run blast to right to cement the dizzying sequence in front of a frenzied Busch Stadium.
The go-ahead home run ranks pretty highly on his career highlight reel, Burleson acknowledged.
“That was the first one I didn’t see hit the seats,” said Burleson, who stood momentarily to admire his handiwork before letting the celebration commence as he rounded the bases.
Burleson shared that although his 6-month-old son was in the house for the moment, the youngster didn’t necessarily see his dad put his stamp on the Cardinals' win.
“Apparently, he was dead asleep when I hit it,” Burleson said. “Mary, my wife, picked him up from a dead sleep and he was not having that. So, he didn’t get to see it, but he was there, for sure.”
While it seemed for a spell that JJ Wetherholt’s MLB debut home run would be all that the sellout crowd would have to celebrate, the Cardinals piled up eight runs on eight hits to flip the script. St. Louis blitzed the Rays’ bullpen, charging three relievers with at least one run.
After trading away mainstays Willson Contreras and Nolan Arenado this offseason, it was inevitable that St. Louis' 2026 lineup would have a different look about it.
With varying expectations surrounding the club in terms of outside punditry, manager Oliver Marmol has leaned into his own personal expectations for a particular style of play, a certain brand of baseball that he anticipates the public will see from his group this season.
Thursday’s bottom of the sixth had that, as St. Louis used eight hits -- including everything from a Victor Scott II bunt single to Burleson’s home run -- and a pair of well-timed sacrifice flies from Wetherholt and Iván Herrera to produce the game-changing scoring rally.
“I think it’s a perfect example of it,” Marmol said. “We promised a louder game. A relentless approach to what we do, and we’re going to continue to hold ourselves to that for 162 [games]. Today’s Day One. But that was a heckuva lot of fun to watch.”
Burleson spoke of a raucous Opening Day atmosphere, and he helped delivered a message to Cardinals fans that what they saw on Thursday wasn’t a one-off. Echoing Marmol’s sentiment, it’s the style that the Cards intend to embody as a hungry clubhouse aims to take ownership of what 2026 can become.
“Obviously, it’s Opening Day, but we want to encourage them: We’re going to continue to play this way,” Burleson added. “Whether we win or lose, we’re going to play hard, we’re going to fight to the end. That’s the style of baseball we want to play, and I think that’s the style of baseball the fans want to see, too.”