St. Louis Cardinals Top Prospect Dominant Over the Weekend

The St. Louis Cardinals are in a rebuild season, but have still put together a pretty solid 56-57 record overall. While it's certainly not where Cardinals fans would like to be, it's still a whole let better than half of MLB, with the hope of better times in the near future.

Part of that future is the Cardinals' No. 2 overall prospect, Quinn Mathews, who was a fourth round selection out of Stanford back in 2023. In his first taste of pro ball in 2024, he sailed through four levels of the minor leagues and put up a cumulative 2.76 ERA across 143 1/3 innings of work while striking out 202 batters.

After excelling in his limited exposure during Spring Training, Mathews was optioned to minor league camp early on, and landed on the minor-league IL in April, where he would spend about five weeks before making a return.

His first three starts this season didn't go particularly well, but since his return from injury he's been a lot more like the player that the fans in St. Louis are waiting on, posting a 3.32 ERA in June and a 3.86 ERA in July. He hasn't been going terribly deep into games, however, typically hovering around four to five frames.

Quinn Mathews kicks off August with his best start of 2025 for the Triple-A @memphisredbirds 🔥

The @Cardinals' second-ranked prospect sets a season high with 9 strikeouts -- all on offspeed or breaking pitches: pic.twitter.com/nJCOYc2lsv
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) August 2, 2025

That changed on Friday night when he took the mound for the Redbirds. The 24-year-old struck out a season-high nine batters, and went 6 2/3 innings, giving up five hits, a walk, and hit two batters, which led to two earned runs coming across the plate.

Quinn had everything working for him, and the Norfolk Tides had zero answers. The lefty threw 94 pitches in this game, with 31 four-seamers (33%), 24 sliders (26%) and 21 changeups (22%), showing a good mix of his top offerings. He also mixed in his curveball (11%), sinker (7%) and threw one pitch that was deemed a cutter.

What really stood out here was that his changeup generated 14 swings, and on 10 of those, Tides batters swung and missed. That's a whiff rate of 71%, and showcases how off-balance Mathews was keeping the opposition.

While he didn't use his curveball nearly as much, it also got two whiffs on three swings, and was called a strike four times. Six of the ten that he threw were either swung on and missed, or just completely taken for a strike. Only one was put in play.

This was also the first start he's had since June 12 where he allowed fewer than two walks. Location has been a bit of an issue for Mathews this season, as he holds a 19.4% walk rate (entirely too high) after rolling through the minors with an 8.6% walk rate.

In his 16 2/3 innings at Triple-A last season, Mathews was also walking 17.7% of the batters he faced, so this is something he'll need to fix before he gets the call up to St. Louis. The hope is that Friday's start will be the beginning of the southpaw getting some of his control back, because if he does, then he could very well be in the mix for a rotation spot in camp next year.

Miles Mikolas is set to his free agency at season's end, which would present an opportunity for Mathews. If he were to make it to the starting five, that would also save the Cardinals some money on payroll, which they may be able to spend elsewhere on the roster in an effort to improve the club and get a little closer to postseason contention.

The next seven starts or so could have huge ramifications on how St. Louis approaches their offseason.