Cardinals Struck Gold With 'Special' JJ Wetherholt

The St. Louis Cardinals phenom did everything right in his first series in the big leagues.

Mar 28, 2026; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; St. Louis Cardinals shortstop JJ Wetherholt (26) reacts after hitting a walk-off two run single against the Tampa Bay Rays during the tenth inning at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

The biggest story from the first series of the 2026 season for the St. Louis Cardinals was, of course, the play of young infielder JJ Wetherholt.

That was going to be the case no matter what he did. When you have a team's top prospect — and the No. 5 overall prospect in the game — making his big league debut, that's going to get some attention. Fortunately, it was in a positive way for Wetherholt. He launched the first homer of his big league career on Opening Day, collected the first walk-off hit of his career in the second game of the season and added another base hit to his resume in the third game of the season on Sunday. Overall, Wetherholt is slashing .308/.333/.538 with one homer, four RBIs, one stolen base, one walk and two runs scored. He's 4-for-13 on the season so far with an .872 OPS. Not too shabby.

He didn't just catch the attention of the fanbase in his first series in the big leagues, but also his teammates. For example, Cardinals slugger Alec Burleson said St. Louis has "something special" in Wetherholt.

JJ Wetherholt stood out right away to kick off the 2026 season

Mar 29, 2026; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; St. Louis Cardinals second baseman JJ Wetherholt (26) throws out Tampa Bay Rays left fielder Chandler Simpson (not pictured) during the seventh inning at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

"Super cool," Burleson said of Wetherholt. "Super cool. Super special. Like, knowing [Busch Stadium], I didn't think it was going out. Just knowing Busch. But he got it and it went pretty far. So, kudos to him. But yeah, he got his first at-bat out of the way, you could kind of see the jitters. Kind of just shakes those off and then goes up there and does his thing. I think we've got something special in JJ and I thinnk he's going to contribute to not only a lot of wins this year, but in the future too."

Wetherholt looked every bit the No. 1 prospect that he is in his first three big league games. Now, of course, this is just three games we're talking about, but the excitement is palpable. If this is the version of Wetherholt the club is going to be getting over the course of the 2026 season, that changes the perception of the club immediately. St. Louis is 2-1 so far and has a scrappy, young team at its disposal. The best example of this is the first game of the season. The Cardinals gave up six runs in the sixth inning but stormed back with eight runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning.

In the first series of the season, the lineup was cooking, starting with Weterholt getting on base at the top. Overall, it was a great first series in the big leagues for Wetherholt. Fortunately, there are a lot more to come.