ST. LOUIS -- Sometimes, baseball players are so focused on the job that details pertaining to daily life can slip through the cracks.
Former Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt once told reporters that he genuinely didn’t realize the previous month was ending when he was asked a question about the calendar turning.
But after Nolan Gorman's struggles in May, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Cardinals' third baseman had made special care to rip that page off the fridge and throw it in the trash.
Gorman toiled to a .192 batting average in May, striking out in 30 of his 78 at-bats with just two home runs. His OPS for the month was .587, dragging his season-long numbers down with it.
Entering Tuesday’s game against the Rangers at Busch Stadium, the slugger seemed to need a swing that could remind him that he is one.
Just as an oversized video game character went Tarps Off on the right-field concourse, Gorman went back side in the bottom of the fourth inning to find the power swing he was looking for.
Gorman beat Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi to the spot on an outside fastball, taking the 93.6 mph pitch to the opposite field, a Statcast-projected 373 feet.
“It felt good,” Gorman said. “But [I] would have liked to win the game.”
Gorman was more focused on the outcome of the Cardinals’ 7-4 loss to the Rangers than on his individual achievement, but there’s no doubting that his seventh home run of the season came right on time.
“Obviously, what I had just gone through was not great,” Gorman said. “But I’m going to be in there and I’ve just got to go compete every day. It’s all I can do.”
Tuesday’s home run marked his first extra-base hit since May 19, when he homered against the Pirates.
“It was good to see [Gorman] get into one today,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “When he’s going well, it is back side. He has a lot of power to the opposite field. … For him to kind of lean on his strength, hopefully that gets him going a little bit.”
The recent doldrums weren’t necessarily anything new for Gorman, who has been known to ride the ebbs and flows of streaky hitting throughout his five-year big league career with the Cardinals.
When he’s going, he’s a one-man wrecking crew in the lineup. When he’s searching at the plate, opposing pitchers seem to have little trouble exploiting holes in his swing.
Whereas in past years, a slumping Gorman might not be guaranteed the consistent playing time to pull himself out of it, this year’s roster allows for Gorman to more regularly play his way through a prolonged lull.
“I think Oli did a good job talking me through some of that stuff,” Gorman said. “I don’t know if it felt any different. I don’t think it did -- it sucked. But we had good conversations.”
After Gorman’s homer, the Cardinals waited until the seventh to find additional production, by which point, their 2-0 lead had become a 4-2 deficit. An RBI double by Alec Burleson and an RBI single by Jordan Walker tied the game at 4, but the sequence that followed made the tied score feel like a 10-run deficit.
Rangers lefty Jalen Beeks relieved Eovaldi and set down three straight Cardinals hitters to quell a first-and-third threat, blowing fastballs by pinch-hitter Nelson Velazquez and shortstop Masyn Winn to rankle the Cards' manager.
“[Beeks] is a guy that, typically -- I mean, if you look at 2026, '25, '24, go back to 12U baseball, he’s got about a 15 percent punchout rate, right?” Marmol said. “So, you’re looking for a ball in play there.”
Elsewhere, the Cardinals whiffed on a squeeze play and popped a bunt into the air for an untimely out. In Marmol’s mind, the errors in execution turned Tuesday’s endeavor into a loss long before closer Riley O’Brien permitted three runs in the ninth to cement it as one.
“You have to execute at a really high level to win a big league game,” Marmol said. “We didn’t do that. We didn’t deserve to win that game. If you end up snatching it at the end there, that’s fine. But you’re not proud of the way that game unfolds.”
Marmol has consistently described his team as a resilient bunch, but the manager rejected the notion that Tuesday’s self-inflicted shortcomings fell into the category of adversity from which one must seek to respond.
“It’s not a matter of being resilient,” Marmol said. ”You’re big leaguers. You better learn how to turn the page. … For me, it’s more a matter of continuing to see opportunities for growth and make sure we’re not missing those. Continue to drill those down, and then figure out who can and who can’t.”