A peculiar development during the Cardinals’ skid entering this series with the Marlins was that select members of the lineup were playing some of their best baseball of the season. Chief among those may have been Paul Goldschmidt, appearing to find his swing, as evident with balls spraying to more parts of the field and his anemic OPS to date rising in accordingly.
It didn’t matter to Goldschmidt, however. The first baseman spent the lead-up to this series with Miami deep in routine with hitting coach Jeff Albert on the field, taking countless underhand tosses long before his teammates were inhabiting the field for their own pregame work, with one motivator in mind:
“I feel like, personally, I've cost us a few games,” Goldschmidt said.
But he proved again he can also win some.
Goldschmidt laced a game-tying knock in the sixth inning and a walk-off blast in the ninth to back up Kwang Hyun Kim’s first quality start for a 2-1 win over the Marlins at Busch Stadium on Tuesday. It marked St. Louis’ first consecutive victories in nearly three weeks, its first series win in its last five tries and put the club back over .500.
“We have a good team, and I feel like a lot of guys have been doing their job and I haven't done my best,” Goldschmidt said. “Just try to keep working and that's what I was doing [pregame] yesterday. It doesn't guarantee results, but definitely not just going to show up and just be like, ‘Oh well,’ and hope for the best.”
Manager Mike Shildt has been an avid defender of Goldschmidt despite his 2021 shortcomings (his slash numbers and OPS+ would serve as career-lows), declaring as early on Monday, when Goldschmidt provided a game-tying single in the fifth, that he hasn’t given his first baseman enough recognition over the season.
That mindset carried into Tuesday, after Goldschmidt sprayed his game-tying single to right field, his walk-off homer to center and stole his fifth base of the season. Signs of a breakout?
“Yes,” Shildt said. “Exclamation mark! Yes. … He's a guy that I try not to take for granted, just such a quiet get-it-done guy, and he does so many subtle things that sometimes, even me, I mentioned last night, you just take it for granted. He does the little things and it just happens and you go, ‘Oh yeah, he's supposed to do that.’”
Tuesday was less of an aberration for Goldschmidt and more of the usual. Now 13 games into June, he’s hitting .311 with three homers and an OPS north of .900. In an equal stretch to close out May, he hit .208 with no homers and a .607 OPS.
Goldschmidt’s latest blast was enough to lift both the club and Kim, who took a winding route to toss his first quality start of the season and the third consecutive such outing by the Cards.
Kim threw more balls (53) than strikes (49) on his 102 pitches and offered a career-high five free passes. Most concerning was the third inning, during which he walked his fourth batter, was forced into 28 pitches by some costly defense and allowed the Marlins’ only run to score on the evening.
Promptly, Kim bore down, retiring 12 of his final 13 batters and going as deep as he’s gone all season to prove a steady hand in a rotation that desperately needs as many as it can get.
“For him to keep it at one run was huge,” Goldschmidt said. “We came into the dugout after that inning and felt like we won that inning, even though we were losing the game.”
Kim, making his first start off the injured list since missing one start with right lower back tightness said he felt inhibited while pitching but still feels a little tense sprinting, fielding balls and in the batter’s box, where he jarred the back on June 4.
That hesitancy, he said, was a bit of a limiting mental factor early in the game. Ultimately pleased with his effort, he still knows there’s more he can provide.
“Next time, I'll do my best to hear 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' when I'm on the mound after the seventh inning,” Kim said.
But it was Goldschmidt who ultimately stole the show, providing the 24,736 at Busch Stadium a bit of throwback Tuesday.