On the same day he was promoted from Triple-A Memphis, Nelson Velazquez hit a momentum-turning three-run homer in the first inning to fuel the Cardinals' 6-5 win over the rival Cubs.
ST. LOUIS – A Cardinals offense in the throes of its worst drought of the season got just the jolt it needed in Friday’s first inning from newcomer Nelson Velazquez.
Velazquez’s three-run homer on the first pitch he saw as a Cardinal sparked an offense that also used homers from Thomas Saggese and Ivan Herrera to beat the rival Cubs 6-5 before 37,564 fans at Busch Stadium.
Velazquez’s curtain-call-inducing blast helped the Cardinals end a season-worst four-game losing streak and win the first meeting of 2026 against their biggest rivals. It was the sixth time this season that the Cardinals hit at least three homers in a game. Also, they improved to 11-5 this season in one-run games.
“Man, I feel like I’d have to put this down as my first big home run,” said Velazquez, who now has 32 career MLB home runs. “We were losing in the first inning by three and to be able to hit a home run and get us on the (score) board, I mean that was a great moment.”
The Cardinals came into Friday ranked 14th in the National League in runs scored (80) and 12th in home runs (19) in the month of May. Also, they had been shut out three times in nine games and held to one run in two others.
Velazquez, 27, thought he swung the bat well enough to make the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster out of Spring Training, but was optioned to Triple-A Memphis – something that admittedly derailed him in March and April. In addition to hitting his first MLB homer since 2024 when he played for the Royals after being traded away from the Cubs, he had an infield single in the eighth inning and scored for a second time.
On Friday night, Cardinals’ manager Oliver Marmol and president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom were reminded of the difficult conversation they had to have with Velazquez at the end of Spring Training that he wasn’t going to Opening Day with the big-league club.
“It was one of the tougher (conversations) because when a player goes out there and proves that he belongs and you have to make a tough decision based on a lot of different factors, that’s a tough one,” Marmol recalled. “Plus, he’s a great fit personality-wise, a real threat offensively and he gave your everything that he had during the Spring to prove himself. I hated the conversation, but he handled it well.”
Added Bloom: “It was definitely one of hardest conversations that we had. … We wanted to keep all our players and we felt like that was the right configuration to start the season. We thought that he deserved an opportunity at some point and if he continued to show what he did in Spring Training that at some point he would get it. The season didn’t start the way that he wanted, but lately he had been locked back in.”
Cardinals utility player Thomas Saggese, who got the start at third base Friday, knotted the score at 4 with a solo homer in the bottom of the fourth. After barely checking his swing on a 1-2 split-finger pitch, Saggese hit the next pitch 402 feet for his first homer since Sept. 16, 2025.
Saggese was quick to praise Velazquez for his huge momentum-turning homer in the first inning.
“The three-run homer (from Chicago’s Ian Happ) was a gut punch, but to get two runners on and for him to go deep, that was electric,” Saggese said. “It was like, ‘Wow, we’re right back in this thing.’ That changes so much. Instead of us grinding and fighting an uphill battle it was like the game was zero-zero.”
An inning later, Herrera punished an elevated splitter and went 409 feet for another homer. For Chicago’s Imanaga, it was his 13th homer allowed in 2026 and he’s been in a freefall over his last four outings Over Chicago’s last 19 games, its pitching staff has surrendered 26 long balls.
Velazquez reminds Cards of thump he can bring
Velazquez, who started in the cleanup spot, admitted before the game that he was stunned when he didn’t make the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster after hitting .357 and smashing four homers in 15 Spring Training games. Those hurt feelings played a role in his poor start to the season – one he shed in May when he was hitting .308 with five homers for Triple-A Memphis.
He wasted no time showing the Cardinals what they had been missing out on by drilling Shota Imanaga’s first pitch 411 feet for a game-tying three-run homer. The homer also had to be special for Velazquez, who hit nine homers with the Cubs from 2022-23 before they traded him to the Royals on July 31, 2023.
“I wasn’t really thinking about hitting a homer because I just wanted to put the ball in play,” he said. “But that was a great moment.”
Andre Pallante needed just seven pitches to retire the first two batters of the game, but he then ran into trouble when he couldn’t close out at bats. Michael Busch singled on a 3-2 pitch and Alex Bregman fought off an inside pitch on 1-2 for another single. Then, long-time Cardinals’ killer Ian Happ drilled a center-cut 0-1 pitch 407 feet for a three-run homer. It was Happ’s 13th career homer at Busch Stadium and his 28th against the Cards.
Pallante needed 75 pitches to get through three innings and Marmol got him out of the game before facing the Cubs lineup a third time. He was charged with eight hits, four earned runs and a walk over just three innings of work.
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