CINCINNATI -- It might sound a bit odd, but one of the finest moments of the season thus far for the Cardinals -- and one that absolutely defines the gritty and grinding plate approach brought by new hitting coach Brant Brown -- was a nine-pitch walk by Willson Contreras.
With the Cards and Braves tied at 4 in last Tuesday’s eighth inning, Contreras stomped to the plate admittedly irate that pitcher Enyel De Los Santos intentionally walked Lars Nootbaar to get to him. The fiery Contreras was even more steamed when he fell to an 0-2 count, but in his eyes, the at-bat was just beginning. He fouled off a pitch over the outside corner, laid off a low-and-away slider and then fouled another potential strike straight back. Another ball and another foul drew the count to 2-2 -- something that seemed to frustrate De Los Santos and breathe life into Contreras. From there, the Braves reliever missed with a ball up and in and a slider in the dirt.
As De Los Santos’ shoulders slumped, Contreras offered up the kind of joyous bat flip usually reserved for towering home runs. The walk kept the inning alive and paved the way for Nolan Gorman’s three-run double that sent St. Louis on its way to a victory.
“I was looking to do damage, but I had to be smart there,” Contreras said later. “I saw everything he had, and I drew the walk. In MLB, you have to fight every game and every at-bat, and that’s what we’re trying to do as a team.”
That fight has shown up this season in how the Cardinals' hitters try to be more stubborn than the pitchers by keeping their patience and looking for good pitches to hit. Sure, it sounds simplistic, but there’s a difference between swinging at strikes and swinging at strikes that will allow them to do damage. Often, that means working deep into counts, being able to foul off pitches and being unwavering with their discipline.
That approach, one drilled into them daily by Brown before and during games, has led to the Cards causing frustration for several pitchers they have faced. They came into their current series against the Reds seeing, on average, 153.9 pitches a game -- good for fifth in MLB. Here’s where the strategy differs from anything done in St. Louis in recent years. That is the most pitches the Cards have seen per game over the last 25 years, per MLB Research. In 2019, they saw 152.5 pitches a game, while the 2017 squad worked pitchers for 151.1 pitches.
“We figure those numbers are a byproduct of having a good plan and executing it,” said Brown, who has become a favorite of hitters because of his meticulous nature of developing a specialized plan for each hitter for each game. “Seeing a lot of pitches the first time through, investing is OK. If you have the count and they throw something you aren’t looking for, invest in it and see if it’s a strike. If I’m swinging at something I’m not on, you don’t know if it would have been a ball or a strike, and it’s probably not a smart strategy.
“We’re just trying to teach a proper, professional way to navigate an at-bat, and that’s allowing us to see a lot of pitches.”
Leadoff hitter Lars Nootbaar embodies that plate approach more than anyone on the Cardinals. Not only has he opened 10 games with a walk -- an NL/AL record in the expansion era (since 1961) for March/April, but he came into Monday ranked sixth in MLB in terms of the number of pitches he sees per game (19.7). Nootbaar is tied for third in MLB in walks (23), but he leads the Cardinals in RBI (17) and is tied at the top in homers (four).
“The guys joke with me about [the walks], but as a leadoff hitter, I still have that old-school mentality of seeing pitches,” Nootbaar said. “There are times when I can jump on a pitch. But coming from an old-school baseball family, that’s what you do and that’s seeing a lot of pitches.”
Thus far, it’s been hard to argue with the results. The Cards went into Tuesday tied for first in the Majors in batting average (.263), first in doubles (61) and in the NL’s top eight in on-base percentage (.333), slugging (.397), OPS (.730), runs (131) and fewest strikeouts (228).
“Obviously there are some learning curves, and some days pitchers are going to execute, and you just have to flush that,” Brown said. “It’s a giant game of keep-away and speed traps -- ball to strike, strike to ball, up, down and both sides of the plate. We just don’t want to chase them around.”