Cardinals’ manager Oli Marmol discusses his team’s seventh comeback win of the season and the talent of rookie JJ Wetherholt, who homered twice on Tuesday night.

ST. LOUIS – Ready to hit – even against a couple of hard-throwing left-handed pitchers – Cardinals’ standout rookie JJ Wetherholt did damage on two first pitches with two totally different swings on Tuesday night.

One of his two homers from the Cardinals’ wild 6-5 win over the Guardians in 10 innings already has earned a spot in his memory bank as the favorite of his rookie season – even when stacked against the long ball he smacked on Opening Day and felt Busch Stadium throb with raw emotion for the first time.

Wetherholt, 23, homered twice in a game for the first time in his MLB career – the third-inning solo shot being a dead-pull swing hit over the right-center wall and the two-run long ball in the eighth being drilled to the opposite field. Both came off lefties and both came off the first pitch of his at bats, but clearly Wetherholt had a distinct favorite on the biggest night of his young MLB career.

“Lefties sometimes can clean up my direction because I’m trying to stay inside the ball, and I was really happy that I went the other way because I’ve really not (done that) since being here,” Wetherholt said. “(Driving balls to the opposite field) is something for me that if things aren’t going well for me, it’s usually because I’m not hitting the ball the other way. So, that one felt better than the pull-side (homer), to be honest.”

The kid came up BIG tonight! 💪 pic.twitter.com/4ZfiwmxvHP

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) April 15, 2026

Wetherholt was just one of the St. Louis stars on a night when it pulled off a seventh comeback win and improved to 4-0 in extra-inning games. Down to their last strike in the bottom of the ninth, the Cardinals got a reprieve when replacement second baseman Juan Brito botched a ground ball off the bat of Masyn Winn. After Winn moved up 90 feet on a wild pitch, Yohel Pozo delivered a clutch double to the right-center gap to the knot score at 5.

“It’s something that I learned last year to calm myself during those moments and just let things happen,” said Pozo, who had six hits and seven RBI as a pinch-hitter for the Cardinals in 2025. “That’s what I did – I calmed myself to see what could happen. I just try and see what the game is telling me to do, and I tried to do that there.”

After Riley O’Brien worked a scoreless 10th and Cardinals’ extra-innings runner Thomas Saggese moved to third on a wild pitch, Nathan Church lofted a sacrifice fly into right field to set off a wild celebration complete with fireworks filling the downtown St. Louis skyline.

“We said it in Spring Training, we’re going to compete every night,” Pozo said. “We’re a young team, but we’re hungry and we want to win.”

Wetherholt doesn't 'let the moment get too big'

The Cards almost certainly wouldn’t have been in position to win without the exploits of their standout rookie. In between his two homers, Wetherholt also made the defensive play of the game by propelling his 5-foot-9 body high into the air to snag a 104-mph liner off the bat of Cleveland’s Bryan Rocchio.

Said Wetherholt: “I was smiling because Masyn was yelling at me, because that’s just how he is. When I do something cool, I’ll show emotion in certain situations and sometimes I’ll just keep a keen face. But that’s hard to do when Masyn is screaming and hyping you up.”

MULTI-HOMER GAME FOR JJ WETHERHOLT! 🤘🤘 pic.twitter.com/MPOxaSdXq8

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) April 15, 2026

Wetherholt was smiling in the eighth inning after hitting the first pitch he saw from left-hander Erik Sabrowski some 366 feet and just over the wall in left field for a two-run homer – but not for the reasons many would expect. The blast drew the Cards within 5-4, but Wetherholt was the last to realize that apparently.

“Going into that at bat I honestly don’t even think I knew the score,” he admitted candidly. “And that’s usually when stuff like that happens because when you know the score you kind of let the moment get too big. …Then, when I’m rounding the bases I’m like, ‘Oh shoot, now it’s a close game!’ But it was definitely a good feeling.”

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