Apr. 2—This latest refinement of Cardinals infielder Nolan Gorman as a bona fide impact hitter started well before the beginning of this season. For that matter, it started well before spring training. In many ways it even started before he spent the offseason making adjustments to his swing mechanics.

The improvements Gorman has made that clearly were evident in the first series of this season really began at the end of last season, when he took more than his share of lumps against majorleague pitchers who’d found a hole in his swing and hammered it over and over again like a spike into the ground.

Ideally, Gorman, 22, would’ve skipped over the struggle and gone right to success. However, baseball can be humbling that way.

The stretch of 38 plate appearances at the end of last season in which he went four for 35 with 17 strikeouts and three walks paved the way for him to enjoy days such as Sunday. That’s when he bashed two home runs and served as a driving force behind a 9-4 series-clinching win over the Toronto Blue Jays in front of an announced sellout crowd of 45,525 at Bush Stadium in which the Cardinals hit four homers.

“Everyone feels they’re ready for the big leagues at some point,” Gorman said. “Once you do get up here, you think you belong. Then it’s just — I say all the time, it’s a chess match and game of adjustments. You’ve got to be able to make those adjustments quick and be able to kind of go back and forth and realize what they’re trying to do.”

Gorman recorded the second-longest home run of his career with his 446foot blast in the first inning, a two-run homer that capped a four-run inning for the Cardinals. His longest career homer was 449 feet, against Milwaukee’s Adrian Houser on May 28, 2022.

Gorman also registered the second multi-homer game of his career, the other having come on May 21, 2022, against Milwaukee. Sunday’s performance also marked the first multi-homer game by a Cardinal since Albert Pujols had one on September 23, 2022.

Through three games, Gorman has gone four for nine with six RBIs, four walks and just three strikeouts.

While those struggles late last season didn’t sit well with Gorman, they did provide a defined roadmap for him this winter.

He struggled with pitches up in the zone, and he’s made mechanical adjustments to address his ability to hit that pitch, but he has also made an effort to distinguish which elevated pitches he can handle and which he can let go.

“It (stunk), but I knew what I needed to do in order to be here,” Gorman said. “I went into the offseason just kind of hungry to get there and keep it.”

Gorman’s track record showed he had standout power and the ability to hit at a high level. He entered this season having averaged a home run once every 20.82 plate appearances in his time in professional baseball.

In 2021, he hit 25 home runs, had 20 doubles and batted .279 in 119 games between Double A and Triple A. Last season in 43 games at Triple A, he hit 16 homers, five doubles and slugged .585 with .275 batting average.

“Good players are able to refocus, and that’s what we’ve seen with Gorman,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “He knew the league exposed the top of the zone. He went into the offseason, found a solution for that, and came in pretty confident in all the work he put in. Had a good spring. And now we’re seeing the benefits of all the work he put in in the offseason.

“That’s a really good example of someone really taking advantage of a couple of months off and working at it. We’re seeing a player with a lot more confidence than we saw at the end of the year.”

Gorman gives the Cardinals a dangerous left-handed hitter in the bottom half of their lineup, someone opposing pitching staffs have to contend with after they’ve navigated their way past big boppers Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado and Willson Contreras.

The length of the Cardinals lineup has certainly shown early as they collected 41 hits and scored 22 runs in their first three games against a formidable Blue Jays staff.

One of the other hitters off to a hot start has been leadoff man Brendan Donovan, who also homered in Sunday’s win. He’s now homered twice in the first three games this season. He has gone five for 14 (.357) to start the season.

Donovan said he and Gorman “lean on each other” as guys who’ve been teammates throughout their professional careers in the minors as well as now in the majors.

“I think the biggest thing is just how consistent he is,” Donovan said. “You look at his cage work. He’s really honing in on the zone. He’s getting great swings off. The swing is super connected. It looks athletic. If you can be connected and athletic in the swing, it just takes care of the rest.

“I’ve played with him at every level. He can really, really hit. It’s just cool to see him make some adjustments and cool to see the success that he’s having now.”

On Sunday, Donovan got the offense started when he lofted a first-pitch changeup over the right-center field wall. The next batter, Alec Burleson, crushed an 0-1 pitch over the left field wall to give the Cardinals back-to-back home runs for the first time this season. They grabbed a two-run lead by the time Blue Jays starter Chris Bassitt had thrown three pitches.

The first three batters of the inning reached base after Paul Goldschmidt blistered a single into left field. Nolan Arenado hit into a double play to keep the inning from snowballing even more on Bassitt, but Willson Contreras’ single followed by Gorman’s towering home run, the third of the inning, gave the Cardinals a 4-0 lead before they’d reached the bottom third of the batting order.

Cardinals starting pitcher Jordan Montgomery allowed three runs in the top of the second to erase most of the breathing room the offense had afforded him, but he steadied the ship and didn’t allow another run through his five innings.

The Blue Jays’ offense drew 10 walks on Saturday after a 19-hit performance in the opener.

“They’re like that,” said Montgomery, who previously pitched for the Blue Jays’ division rival the New York Yankees. “I think they know me, too. They know exactly what they’re getting when they face me I’ve faced them so much.

“It’s a little different, especially being left-handed. You have to test the waters with certain pitches, see what they’re going after, see how aggressive they are, and then go off of that. Hard to game plan a team like that — so hot the one day, cold the next, aggressive or not. They can be one thing one day and the opposite the next.”