​Not in the starting lineup—and not even in the game during the two-hour, 43-minute rain delay—but reserve catcher Jimmy Crooks was ready when his opportunity finally arrived just after midnight at Busch Stadium on Saturday morning. Crooks came into the game as a defensive replacement in the seventh inning and promptly unleashed a 405-foot homer at 12:13 a.m. CT. All-Star closer Riley O’Brien preserved the lead in the ninth as the Cardinals edged the Braves 2-1 on a rain-soaked night.
“After the rain delay, everybody had to get ready and we all had to do our part and we got the job done,” Crooks told Apple TV. “For me, it was just about being ready on the heater and when he hung the sweeper, I hit it.”
O’Brien earned his 23rd save of the season, though he momentarily faced a scare when Braves catcher and Missouri State product Drake Baldwin drove a ball toward the middle of the warning track in center field with one out in the ninth. The win provided a much-needed lift for a Cardinals club that had dropped four of five to the Brewers earlier in the week. The victory pulled St. Louis within two games of the Marlins for the final Wild Card spot in the National League.
The Cardinals were set to face the Braves again on Saturday and Sunday before the MLB All-Star break. Jordan Walker will join Ivan Herrera, O’Brien, and manager Oliver Marmol on the National League All-Star roster. Crooks delivered his third career home run—and his second off a left-hander—off an 83 mph sweeper from Danny Young, and it marked Crooks’s first career homer at Busch Stadium.
“It took a long time,” Crooks said of hitting his first home run at home. “But it definitely felt great.”
The Braves opened the scoring in the fifth inning on Mike Yastrzemski’s leadoff double after Soriano’s second inning of work. He rifled a 96.1 mph four-seam fastball into the right-field corner for a double, and a single by Austin Riley followed, sending Yastrzemski home and giving Atlanta a 1-0 lead. The Cardinals tied it in the sixth when Walker singled the other way to bring in JJ Wetherholt, who had walked and moved to second on an Ivan Herrera single. That RBI tied the game at 1-1 and gave Walker his MLB-leading 74th RBI.
Starting pitchers Kyle Leahy and Chris Sale delivered strong early innings before the rain delay. Leahy allowed only an infield single and struck out three over just over three innings of work. The Cardinals briefly threatened Sale, notching an Ivan Herrera single and a Blaze Jordan double, but Sale fan­ned five—striking out four in a row at one point across the second and third innings.
As the game stretched past the delay, both teams recalibrated, and Crooks’s late-inning blast proved decisive. The Cardinals will look to carry this momentum into the rematch with Atlanta and toward the All-Star break, with several players receiving recognition for their ongoing contributions as they chase a postseason berth.