The St. Louis Cardinals are in Minneapolis today to take on the Minnesota Twins, but unfortunately, the rain began to fall heavily in the middle of the first game of the series and has sent tonight’s game into a rain delay.
Blaze Jordan made sure to make his mark in his MLB debut before the delay began, getting his first career hit and RBI on a single up the middle to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead over the Twins. Alec Burleson hit his fourth home run in four games off of Joe Ryan during the first inning, but Byron Buxton responded with a solo shot of his own off of Kyle Leahy. JJ Wetherholt added another run in the second inning to get the score to 3-1 Cardinals.
We’ll keep tabs on the status of the game and update you when more information is made available.
When will the Cardinals-Twins game start again?
The Cardinals-Twins game is expected to restart at 8:30pm central time.
Chaim Bloom is clearly treating the Cardinals’ exciting start to the year with care, as he’s made multiple roster shake-ups over the last month to help maximize their big league roster. Sitting at 37-29, FanGraphs is currently giving the Cardinals an over 50% chance of making the playoffs as of today, and it’s hard to disagree with them. The offense is now humming, the defense continues to be a major plus, and their pitching is doing enough to win them games.
And the Cardinals still have more ways to improve the big league club as the season goes on. Outfielder Joshua Baez presents them with another big bat they could add to their lineup once he improves some of his contact rates, Quinn Mathews is pitching extremely well in Memphis right now and could factor into the rotation soon, and relievers like Max Rajcic and Luis Gastelum could bolster their bullpen at some point as well.
This team is uber competitive, sitting in the first Wild Card spot right now with a 2.5 game lead, and is giving fans every reason to believe they can keep the good vibes going all year long during the first year of Bloom’s leadership.
If this game is able to restart, fans will get the chance to see if Jordan can add to his already impressive MLB debut. His bat is hopefully going to be a much-needed upgrade over what Nolan Gorman had been doing as of late, helping lengthen the Cardinals’ lineup even further this summer. Much like Burleson when he first came up, Jordan has developed a reputation as a “happy swinger”, and so they’ll work with Jordan to help him channel his swing decisions to find more success as he grows as a hitter.
The big question with Jordan’s game remains his defense. The Cardinals had real reservations with it, but he’s shown enough improvement as of late that they felt comfortable making the switch and seeing what he could do for them.
We’ll continue to update the weather situation as more information is made available regarding the delay and inclement weather.