Cardinals Rookie Leads Homer-Happy Win Over Rival Royals
JJ Wetherholt, a strong candidate to win the National League's Rookie of the Year award, strengthened his case by smashing two homers and the Cardinals also got three-run long balls from Masyn Winn and Ivan Herrera in a wild 12-10 win over the Royals.
Video Transcript
Well, this is what we've learned about the 2026 St. Louis Cardinals so far.
This team is gonna always play a lot of tight games, and they're always gonna keep it interesting.
The Cardinals won an absolutely wild game on Sunday.
12-10 winners over the Royals in a game that had 28 hits and had 15 runs scored in the first two innings.
That's the most in Major League Baseball this season.
I'm John Denton with Roundtable Sports.
Let's look back at this game.
JJ Wetherholt, the, the fire, spark plug of this team all season, hit two home runs.
He led off the game with a home run.
He came back in the second inning after Nathan Church had doubled, hit another home run.
It was his second multi home run of the game of the season, o- of his young career.
Yvonne Herrera hit a big three-run home run.
Mason Wynn hit a big three-run home run.
Alec Burlson had a triple.
listen to this from the top three in the lineup.
JJ Wetherholt, three for five, two home runs, three RBI.
Yvonne Herrera, three for five, a home run, three RBIs, and he also got plunked in the head.
That's the 10th time he's been hit by a pitch in June.
One more will equal the all-time Major League record, and he's been hit 21 times on the season, far and away the most in the big leagues.
And then Alec Burlson was three for five with a triple and an RBI.
he drilled a liner to center field.
Lane Thomas dove for it, almost got it, went under his glove all the way to the wall, for a triple.
And then in the ninth inning, Burlson hit a ball that was almost a home run, but curved just in front of the foul pole.
So that top three in the order were nine for 15 with three home runs, a triple, eight runs scored, and seven RBI.
Even with all of that, what if I told you the biggest play of the day might have been on the defensive side of the ball?
Jordan Walker, one of He struggled so poor- so much over his first three years in right field defensively.
He turned to his left, turned to his right, went up over the wall, all six foot six of him, over the wall, robs a home run from Salvi Perez in the, in the seventh inning.
That turns out that the, the, you know, the way the game got in the ninth inning, that might have saved the game for the Cardinals.
Riley O'Brien came on in the ninth, had more trouble again.
Jack Caglian looked like, you know, he looked like a world beater in this series against the Cardinals.
He had four home runs in the series.
He led off the ninth with a home run off of Riley O'Brien.
one of the home runs was 444 feet into the second level of fountains.
the other home run was 421 feet.
So, you know, Caglian crushed the Cardinals this whole series.
he gets it within 12-9.
Salvi Perez gets hit, goes all the way around, scores on an infield grounder, when Jimmy Crooks missed the tag.
That made it 12-10.
Here the Cardinals are.
They've got their closer on the mound.
The Royals have runners at second and third, the potential tying runs in a 12-10 game.
Riley O'Brien throws a 99.5 mile an hour pitch on the inside corner, strikes out pinch hitter John Rave, to make two outs in the inning.
And then pesky Isaac Collins, a guy who's given the Cardinals trouble for years when he was with the Brewers and now with the Royals, hits a tapper off the plate back to Riley O'Brien.
He throws to first, and they end the game.
so the Cardinals were lucky to get out of there.
It's another one of those wild, close games that the Cardinals have been playing all season, but they will take it.
it's-- they've had a rough stretch.
They lost the final game of the Padres series.
They got beat up the first two games of the Royals series.
Had a much-needed day off yesterday because the World Cup was in Kansas City, so that could have come at a, at a good time for the Cardinals.
They were ready today.
Like I said, JJ Wetherholt starts the game with a, a two run, with a lead-off home run.
The Cardinals score five in the first and four more in the second.
they needed every one of them because the Royals scored six times in the first two innings.
Those 15 runs were the most runs scored in the first two innings of a game all season.
So it was a wild one.
Cardinals came out on top.
I'm John Denton with Roundtable Sports.
