5 traits from the Cardinals’ opening sweep to watch. ‘Every at-bat is a damn dogfight.’

By the nature of its setup, from the focus on workouts and preparation to the specific goals and small sample sizes in exhibition games, spring training involves a lot more talking about what makes a team than seeing it.

The lineup is rarely together. The bullpen never is.

Spring is all about the tell.

The Cardinals used their opening weekend to show.

Into the lineup Sunday, Pedro Pages and Nolan Gorman put balls out of the park as part of a 9-2 jubilee at Busch Stadium that completed a sweep of Minnesota and suggested, however briefly, there might be more to these Cardinals than expected. The Cardinals swept a season-opening series at home for the first time since 2003, and they did so with a multifaceted game.

They outscored the Twins, 19-6.

They outpitched the Twins.

They outfoxed them with defense.

They outslugged them with runners in scoring position.

They ousted them having led at the end of all but one of the 27 innings.

And they did it exactly as they spent all spring insisting they would – by relying on every nook of the roster. The Cardinals got key contributions from 23 of the 26 active players, and two of them are the starters in the next two games.

“You can say certain things, but then you actually have to do them,” Marmol said. “You can talk about playing for each other. You can talk about being relentless. You can talk about being aggressive. You can talk about having energy. But you have to show it. We can say we’re going to have a rotation of guys and it’s going to take everybody — that’s a perfect example. That gives us the best shot at executing and that’s what we’re seeing.

“We’ll stay committed to it.”

Victor Scott II hit a three-run homer that flipped Sunday’s game on the Twins in the second inning, and the bottom half of the Cardinals lineup combined to score six of the runs and drive in all nine. Scott spent the series personifying a lot of what the Cardinals did well: He robbed extra bases with a lunging catch in Game 1, he took extra bases with two steals in Game 2 and he hit for extra bases with the homer in Game 3.

“We did a lot of things positive,” Marmol said. “We hit the ball all over the park. We pitched it well. Our ’pen has gotten ahead of just about everybody. Our defense has been very smooth. We’re convicted about playing the game the right way and playing it hard. That’s what’s been consistent every inning of these three games.”

Here are five traits of the sweep that are already trends to watch:

1. Lineup dynamics

The season began with something that did not happen at all, not even once, in 2024, and that was Lars Nootbaar leading off. The Cardinals outfielder saw six pitches in the first at-bat of the season, fouled off two pitches to fall behind in the count and did not bite on change-up from Pablo Lopez.

When the Twins ace turned back to his fastball, Nootbaar laced it for a single.

A balk put him at second before Lopez had thrown a 10th pitch.

“Since Nootbaar’s first hit to open the series, it was just snowball effect from there,” Gorman said. “Everything has been rolling.”

The concept behind Marmol’s early lineups has been on-base skill at the top, contact and RBI-cravers in the middle, and speed at the bottom. All three dimensions played out as advertised.

Nootbaar reached base seven times in the series. The Cardinals got five home runs from five different batters from five different spots in the order. Batting eighth for all three games, Scott stole three bases.

Nine Cardinals had at least two hits in the series.

“It’s got great balance,” Scott said. “It’s hit collectors. It’s the guys who are supposed to drive the ball out of the park. We got a great balance of guys in there who understand their roles, who know what to do when that time comes. It’s worked for these three games, and it’s going to continue to work.”

When the Cardinals started Pages and Gorman for the first time, they combined to go 6 for 8 with four RBIs, two home runs and five runs scored. Pages was a triple shy of the cycle. Gorman turned his first start into a display of what he’s worked on with his swing to use more of the field.

And all of this is before No. 2 hitter Willson Contreras is rewarded for his line drives.

“Man, I feel like every at-bat is a damn dogfight,” Marmol said. “Every pitch is important. Every inning is its own game within a game. We score a couple of runs and the next inning start from scratch. The first guy has to get on. It’s contagious.”

2. Prevent defense

The score Sunday didn’t draw attention to individual moments, but the defense was no less stingy than when it helped win the previous two games. Andre Pallante coaxed 11 groundouts from the Twins, and in the ninth inning, Michael Siani cagily used the stands to shield against the sun to catch a low liner. Throughout the Twins’ visit, the Cardinals defense held a seal on the game, with the only leak being an occasional steal of second base.

Nolan Arenado called the overall ability of the defense “underrated,” and if there’s anything the Cardinals can hold tight to as a constant from the sweep, it’s their deft gloves.

3. Pitching depth

During Pallante’s first week in the big leagues, starter Miles Mikolas offered him some advice about not looking for something he would not find.

“You’ll never find a comfortable inning,” the veteran said then. “Because they don’t exist.”

If there is a pitching equivalent to the “dogfight” at-bats described by Marmol, it came in the third inning for Pallante. The Cardinals had yanked the lead back from the Twins with Scott’s home run, and almost immediately, Minnesota was threatening. Pallante’s second time through the lineup began with a one-out double and then a walk to put the tying run on base for No. 3 hitter Byron Buxton.

He delivered the Twins’ only RBI to that point in the game.

“There are no relaxed, comfortable at-bats in the big leagues,” Pallante said.

Distrusting his curveball, Pallante stuck stubbornly with the breaking ball he could count on and challenged Buxton with the slider. The right-hander kissed a slider off the dirt to get Buxton swing over the top of it for a 2-2 count. Pallante jammed a 95.7 mph sinker in on Buxton so that he could come back with another slider in the dirt — and Buxton bit, striking out to essentially unplug the rally.

Pallante allowed a solo homer in the next inning, but by then, the Cardinals had opened up an 8-1 lead and he was on his way to giving the rotation a clean sweep of the wins.

No. 1 starter Sonny Gray’s performance perked up as he promised for opening day, and as a group, the three starters — Gray, Erick Fedde and Pallante — held the Twins to five runs in 16 innings. Not one of them allowed more than four hits. Pallante was the only starter to walk a batter.

With the exception of Gray, the starters had strong enough performances in spring that the Cardinals felt comfortable reshuffling them into a modified six-man rotation. One of the starters who had the strongest spring moved into that sixth spot — and was vital Sunday.

Steven Matz pitched the final four innings after the 58-minute rain delay to earn the first big league save in his 194th big league appearance. The save was more than a stat.

By getting 12 outs from 13 batters, Matz readied the relievers for the next series.

“Got a full, fresh bullpen for the series against the Angels,” Pallante said. “If someone gets into trouble and we need someone to come in the fifth inning, they’re good. And they can help feed off each other.”

They already have. Within the series sweep of the Twins was not just the starter depth help the bullpen but the bullpen exploring its own depth. Setup man Ryan Fernandez was unavailable on opening day, and that led to Kyle Leahy in a setup role, Chris Roycroft in a higher-leverage spot and newcomer Phil Maton bridging a lead to closer Ryan Helsley. They handled their holds, and by Saturday, usual setup relievers Fernandez and JoJo Romero were set and zippy through their assignments, too.

Only Maton appeared on back-to-back days.

The bullpen walked one Twin.

“The starters kept attacking,” Pages said. “They all looked good. They look like their stuff is there. Seeing that, being able to attack, getting ahead of hitters, not getting behind and making innings longer just walking people. Make them earn it, pitch by pitch.”

4. RISP damage

The root of the Cardinals’ offensive struggles in 2024 and what ultimately kept from a playoff berth and plunged them into this “reset” was a lack of production with runners in scoring position.

Or as one player recently put it: “We didn’t slug.”

The Cardinals had their lowest batting average (.229) with runners in scoring position (RISP) since the stat has been tracked, about 50 years. That was further undermined by the National League’s worst slugging percentage with RISP, at .342. They lacked damage when it would have done the most … well, damage.

That was not the case against the Twins. The Cardinals went 10 for 31 with runners in scoring position, but two homers Sunday and four extra-base hits total produced 17 RBIs. Only the Yankees and Dodgers have more extra-base hits with runners in scoring position than the Cardinals so far.

All three teams are undefeated.

This is not a coincidence.

“At the plate, you see guys getting on in front, taking good pitches, sticking to their game plan,” Gorman said. “Everybody knows each other’s game plans going into the game. We’re kind of holding each other accountable. So you see them sticking to it and you see them having that success, knowing they have the right game plan. It leads to confidence for guys after them.”

5. Crowd control

Even with a lousy forecast and the threat of thunderstorms, there was a precipitous drop all weekend in crowd size at Busch Stadium.

The Cardinals got their sellout for opening day, at 47,395.

By Saturday, the chill the Cardinals expected from ticket sales began to take hold with a drop to 30,712 tickets sold. On Sunday, with St. Louis City SC also playing at the same time down the street and terrible weather expected, the Cardinals had a crowd of 26,923, a drop of 43%. Only one scheduled home game drew fewer last season, and that was the 26,553 sold for an August game against San Diego.

They’re already there, and it’s not yet April.

The Cardinals prefer to open on the road for reasons related to ticket sales in March and April — chance for poor weather, school nights — but they also knew the previous two seasons had caused a lag in enthusiasm.

Will results on the field change that?

The only way to find out are results like this weekend.

Every show needs an audience.

Every team needs its starting point.

“It’s the mindset,” Marmol said. “You’re going to have weeks that don’t look the way you want them to look from a production or performance standpoint. There are going to be times where we make mistakes defensively. There are going to be times when we go through a series and don’t hit, maybe two series. The overall mentality and demeanor and identity of the club has to remain the same — it’s playing the game the right way and playing it hard. …

“You think about building on what we’ve just done,” Marmol continued. “No different than every inning. It’s like a new start. Let’s go.”