CHICAGO — Before Cardinals rookie Nolan Gorman elicited ooh’s and aahh’s — the kind that only come when a player crushes a no-doubter that lands well up the bleachers at Wrigley Field — the rookie slugger had to endure the barbs and laughs in the dugout on Friday.
Gorman, a 22-year-old who has played just 11 MLB games, is supremely confident, but he also isn’t anywhere near the most effusive player in the Cardinals’ clubhouse — not with his words or his emotions.
When the left-handed-hitting second baseman whiffed in his first two at-bats on Friday — the first two at-bats he had taken since Monday when his lower back started to stiffen and knocked him out of the lineup for three days — Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol looked to be a pressure reliever for a clearly pressing Gorman. Marmol wouldn’t be specific about what he said to Gorman, but it elicited a big smile and laugh from the usually serious-minded Phoenix native.
“What I’ve enjoyed the most about it with him is he comes in after his second punchout and we go back and forth a little bit and he’s able to laugh at himself,” Marmol said candidly. “After that, he’s able to go out there and get something done because he’s slowing the game down. He’s in a good spot.”
The third home run of Gorman’s career landed in a good spot for the Cardinals — approximately 424 feet away from where it left the rookie’s bat at 104.6 mph. The three-run home run propelled St. Louis to a 14-5 win over the rival Cubs on a day when the Cards piled up 15 hits and five long balls.
Gorman, who didn’t miss Marcus Stroman’s 91 mph fastball over the middle of the plate on a 3-2 count, became just the fourth Cardinal in franchise history to have at least three home runs in the first 11 games of his MLB career. Albert Pujols (2001) and Joe Cunningham (1954) had four home runs in 11 games, while Tyler O’Neill (2018) hit three in that same period. Similarly, Gorman had historians scrambling through…