The St. Louis Cardinals are on a hot streak after going 5-12 to start the second half; the Redbirds have won their last four series, going 8-4 in their last 12 games. St. Louis opens a series with the Cincinnati Reds with a doubleheader Monday. Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported after their game Sunday that Quinn Mathews will get the ball in game one and Andre Pallante will toe the rubber in game two.
Mathews will make his second major league appearance Monday afternoon, his debut coming against the Toronto Blue Jays on August 1.
Quinn Mathews: The Strikeout Artist
Mathews was surged up the rankings during his 2024 season when he climbed the minor leagues from low-A to Triple-A, racking up 202 punchouts along the way. Mathews vaulted up the Cardinals rankings to No. 2 on MLB Pipeline in 2025. He is currently the organization’s No. 8 prospect.
St. Louis laid the path out clear for him: perform, and you’ll continue to get the opportunities at the big-league level. When he was called up for a road game in Toronto for his MLB debut, he went five innings with only three strikeouts. The strikeouts did not come in bunches for him then, but could be in the cards on Monday. The Reds have the highest strikeout rate in Major League Baseball this season. If there was a matchup designed for him to succeed, it is this one.
With a good slider and changeup combination, Mathews keeps hitters guessing at the plate, and a breakout game against the strikeout-prone Reds might not be a fairy tale.
Cardinals Getting Hot
Just over a month remains in the MLB season, and the Cardinals have not been to the postseason since the final tour of Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina. This season was a new beginning: new management in the front office, four premier names were traded in the winter, and now St. Louis is knocking on the door of October.
Over the past weekend, the Cardinals made the call on Joshua Baez, bringing up the power-hitting outfielder for his debut on Saturday. What a debut it was; Baez became the first player in MLB history to hit three home runs in his first three major league at-bats. That would spark the offense and provide some protection to Jordan Walker and Alec Burleson. The Cardinals’ middle of the order feasted on Sunday, with Walker and Burleson totaling eight RBIs.
The Cardinals need help, the have been doing their part but need the teams in front of them to stumble to get back into the driver’s seat. The deadline came and went, and the Cardinals were sellers but have played their way back into the thick of it.
Looking for another eye-popping rookie performance, the Cardinals begin a five-game set with the Reds, with the doubleheader on Monday.
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