ST. LOUIS – With surging slugger Jordan Walker in the midst of a seven-game hitting streak – one that has seen him also smash five homers to climb to the top of MLB’s long-ball leaders – it would only be natural to wonder if the hot stretch correlates to the 6-foot-6 outfielder moving up to cleanup and the No. 3 spot in the Cardinals lineup.

Not the case at all, manager Oliver Marmol contends.

Marmol, who first moved Walker up in the lineup last Sunday when shortstop Masyn Winn was out with a hip injury, instead points to the mechanical changes and the newfound plate discipline as the reasons behind the best stretch of baseball in Walker’s 3 ½-year MLB career.

“Gosh, in a silo, no,” Marmol said of Walker’s rise in the order spurring his hot hitting. “Unless he makes the mechanical changes, changes his approach and has the level of preparation of understanding how he’s going to be attacked, none of it matters. At the end of the day, those are the things that are giving him success and then those are the things that are giving him confidence. That’s helping him ton.”

Walker hit his sixth home run of the season on Saturday night to move into a tie for first in MLB in homers with Baltimore shortstop Gunnar Henderson and Houston DH Yordan Alvarez. Also, Walker came into Sunday leading the Cardinals in batting average (.314), on base percentage (.386), slugging (.706), OPS (1.092) and RBI (13).

Some might wonder if pitchers are attacking differently with him getting more lineup protection higher in the order – both with JJ Wetherholt, Ivan Herrera and Alec Burleson often on base ahead of him or lefty slugger Nolan Gorman hitting behind him. After all, in the five games where Walker has hit cleanup, he is batting .333 with three homers and four RBI. And his production has declined when he’s batted sixth (three games, .182, no homers, no RBI), seventh (two games, .500, no homers, three RBI) and eighth (one game, .000, no homers, two RBI).

There’s also a large variance in how Walker has hit with runners in scoring position. In the small sample size of his 14 games played, Walker had hit .387 with four homers and four RBI in his 31 at bats with the bases empty. However, in his 14 at bats with runners in scoring position, he’s hit just .214 with two homers and nine RBI. In his one plate appearance with the bases loaded, Walker hit a majestic 459-foot grand slam that left the bat at a scorching 113.7 mph.

Focusing on being instinctual and athletic instead of worrying so much about his mechanics has been freeing for the 245-pound Walker, he said.

“I’m really not thinking about my mechanics and shutting my brain off the best that I can,” said Walker, who leads the Cardinals in batting average (.314), on base percentage (.386), slugging (.706), OPS (1.092) and RBI (13) in addition to the six long balls. “It’s never possible to shut everything off, but as best as I can if I can just not think about my mechanics and then just swing when the ball is out there.”

Marmol again points to Walker’s improved approach – in terms of how’s seeing the ball, the timing of loading his body and how he’s staying on pitches on the outer half of the plate – as reasons for his success. Hard-hit grounders to shortstop have become long drives back up the middle and to right field, Marmol said, because Walker is pulling off the ball less and staying up right with his posture.

Also, there’s this: Much better pitch recognition and swing selection have had the hitter in more favorable counts. Naturally, he has had dramatically more success when the count is tilted in his favor. To wit:

·      In the 11 at bats that have ended with Walker ahead in the count, he has hit .364 with three homers and eight RBI.

·      In the 17 at bats that have ended with Walker behind in the count, he has hit just .235 with a homer and two RBI.

·      The rest of his damage – two homers – have come either on first pitches or with the count even.  

“I think this has a lot more to do with what he can cover and what he’s swinging at and that’s allowing for this,” said Marmol, who credited the work that hitting coaches Brant Brown, Casey Chenoweth and Brandon Allen have done with Walker. “It has more to do with the mechanical changes and less to do with who’s in front of him and behind him

“The other day (in Washington on Wednesday), him laying off some of those sliders down and away is buying him another pitch to do damage with and that’s not a matter of who was in front or or base. It had more to do with him not chasing and getting something that he can hit hard. When they can no longer (pitch him away to get him out), then he can do what he’s doing it. What they usually attack him with is no longer working and now he has an opportunity to do some damage in the zone.”

Walker, who has done enormous damage against relievers (.435, five homers and eight RBI in 23 at bats), wants to keep his focus on his process instead of his stellar results thus far. After experiencing mostly frustration-filled struggles over his first three MLB seasons, he wants to try and ride this wave of success as long as possible.

“It’s a hard game, for sure, but I always have fun playing it,” said Walker, who became the first player in Cards history with six home runs in his first 13 games of a season before turning 24 years old. “Right now, (the momentum) is pretty good and I just want to keep it going.”    

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