How Cardinals-Jordan Walker Buzz Has Already Shifted

The St. Louis Cardinals have just one game under their belt in the 2026 Major League Baseball regular season.

It's obviously a very small sample size, but it didn't take long for the conversation around young outfielder Jordan Walker to shift a bit. If you followed along throughout Spring Training, there were some wild takes about the 23-year-old outfielder. He didn't have a great Spring Training offensively. Overall, he slashed .205/.255/.273 with one homer, three RBIs, and three walks.

He turned it on towards the end of camp and went 3-for-7 across his final two games before the regular season kicked off with a homer. Then, he followed up by going 1-for-4 with a double and run scored on Opening Day against the Tampa Bay Rays. Quickly, the buzz around Walker has gone from someone some wildly speculated could miss the Opening Day roster to now MLB.com's Will Leitch noted in a column with five takeaways from Opening Day that Walker looks like someone who has "made strides."

Jordan Walker will be interesting to follow in 2026

Feb 22, 2026; West Palm Beach, Florida, USA; St. Louis Cardinals right fielder Jordan Walker (18) celebrates after scoring against the Houston Astros during the fifth inning at CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches. Mandatory Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images | Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

"Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman look like they’ve made strides," Leitch wrote. "Walker and Gorman have exemplified the frustration that Cardinals fans have felt with the inability of the team’s young players to launch over the past few years. ... One game is one game, but there were definitely encouraging signs from both. Gorman (whose plate approach showed clear differences in spring) had the third of the Cardinals’ seven straight hits in the sixth inning, on an 0-2 pitch no less.

"Walker (who struggled dramatically this spring) drilled a 100.4 mph ground-rule double right after him. You don’t want to get carried away — that’s the only two times either batter reached — but they hit the ball hard, and that’s what the Cardinals need them to do. And they ended up being integral to the winning rally."

This is a perfect example of how quickly buzz shifts around Major League Baseball. The negative takeaways from Walker were overblown to begin with throughout Spring Training. It's the time of year when guys work on things to bring to game action. You're not always going to see big-time numbers in camp, and they don't really matter. If a guy bats .950 or .150 in camp, both numbers go back down to zero when Opening Day hits. Walker did look good on Opening Day and arguably has a big year ahead.