ST. LOUIS – With the clock nearing midnight after a long day and night at the ballpark last Saturday – time that included the Cardinals beating the back-to-back champion Dodgers – Oliver Marmol’s exiting of Busch Stadium was interrupted by the sound of bat repeatedly hitting ball.

Who, the Cardinals manager wondered to himself, would still be in the batting cases long after the club had won a sixth straight game and had another game to play roughly 13 hours later?

Marmol went to investigate for himself and there he found speedy center fielder Victor Scott II and some of the team’s hitting staff working on swings off a pitching machine that can simulate big-league spin and triple-digit heat.

“I left here – gosh, a couple of nights ago at 11:45 or midnight before I left here – and I could still hear someone hitting in the cage and it was Vic,” Marmol relayed on Monday, after the Cardinals had beaten the Brewers 6-3 and Scott had contributed two hits, a double and a run scored. “For him to come up (on Monday) – I know he’s put in a lot of work, and for him to have the night he had, it’s important. It’s important for us and his confidence. It’s good to see him get rewarded.”

The Cardinals are highly hopeful that the 25-year-old Scott finally found something in all the extra work he has put in of late that will slingshot him out of a season’s worth of frustration at the plate. Two hits on Monday and another single and stolen base on Wednesday boosted Scott’s slash line to .189/.253/..244/.497 with two doubles, a homer, five RBI and six steals in eight attempts.

A note-taker and a note hard worker, Scott is trying to dig himself out of a rough April where he had just seven hits and batted only .113 from the No. 9 spot in the order. Recently taken out of the starting lineup so that he could put in extra work with hitting coach Brant Brown and assistant hitting coaches Brandon Allen and Casey Chenoweth, Scott admitted that he’s been desperately searching for a cure to his hitting ills.

“That (work ethic) is something that has always been engrained in me since I was young – staying after and working until you feel like you’ve got it … or you’ve got something,” said Scott, who hit .179 over 52 games in 2024 and .216 in 138 games last season before struggling again in 2025. “I’ve been doing that since high school. I don’t do it every day, but when it’s necessary, I stay after and try to grind things out.”

Much of the grinding has been trying to get Scott to hold his hands lower in the batter’s box to make his load quicker. While foes have been quick to challenge him with fastballs and he’s been put away on those pitches 30.3 percent of the time, it is curveballs, sliders and sweepers that still tend to give him the most trouble.

Scott has hit .292 (14 for 48) on at bats that end in fastballs, but his average has plummeted to .091 (3 for 33) against breaking balls and .000 (0 for 9) against off-speed pitches. His one homer this season -- a towering, 415-foot clout last week in Pittsburgh -- offered some promise as it came off an inward breaking curveball.

Cards looking to continue to be road warriors on West Coast 

Then, there’s this: His whiff (29.7 percent) and strikeout rates (26.4 percent) have climbed, while his hard-hit (28.6 percent), barrel (1.5 percent) and walk (6.6 percent) rates have fallen. Accordingly, his weak contact rate has gone from 14 percent in 2025 to 17.1 percent this season and his topped grounders have gone from 25.3 percent to 31.4 percent.

In 2025, he was able to cover some of his hitting deficiencies by ranking ninth in MLB in Outs Above Average (17) and stealing 44 bases in 48 attempts. This season, his defensive impact has been minimal (2 Outs Above Average) and he’s just six of eight on steal attempts because of low on-base percentage.

Scott’s solution: Keep on working.

“You get to kind of questioning if what you are doing works,” said Scott, whose Cardinals begin a seven-game West Coast swing against the Padres and Athletics starting on Thursday night. “That’s the hardest part to going through whatever (slump) it may be.

“But it’s about asking questions to (Jon) Jay, (bench coach Daniel) Descalso, Oli, (hitting coach Brant Brown) and (assistant hitting coach) Casey (Chenoweth) about, ‘How can I refine this? What can I tweak or change?’ You’re just trying to come up with something to help you perform better.”   

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