(Photo by Benjamin Rusnak/Getty Images)
The St. Louis Cardinals were down a few pieces over the weekend thanks to injuries.
While Willson Contreras ultimately worked his way back from a knee injury on Opening Day, Lars Nootbaar was sitting due to a jammed thumb.
Fortunately, the Cardinals had a solid backup plan in place.
On Sunday, prospect Alec Burleson drew the start in left field and did not disappoint.
The 24-year-old hit one of four Cardinals home runs off of Chris Bassitt and two doubles as the Cardinals rolled to a 9-4 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.
On Twitter, Baseball Reference pointed out an interesting fact, that Burleson is just the second Cardinals player to have recorded a game with three extra-base hits just 25 games into his career since the end of World War II.
Alec Burleson had 3 extra base hits—a homer and two doubles—in the @Cardinals win yesterday.
He’s just the second St. Louis Cardinal since WWII to have a game with 3+ extra base hits in the first 25 games of their career.#MLB | #STLCards pic.twitter.com/iMTD2m0sRp
— Baseball Reference (@baseball_ref) April 3, 2023
Burleson is yet another young star in the Cardinals organization who appears ready to do some damage.
St. Louis’ only major addition over the winter was Contreras, but they are high on what they already had in the system and Burleson gave them a reason to be excited on Sunday.
The young slugger followed up Brendan Donovan‘s leadoff home run with a blast of his own, which helped get the rally started for St. Louis in the first inning.
Nolan Gorman hit the other two home runs for the Cardinals in their win.
But Burleson had himself a day to remember.
The 24-year-old is now hitting .375 through his first eight at-bats of the season and has an OPS of 1.375.
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