Masyn

Winn

Winn tripled with one out in the third inning and scored on a sacrifice fly by Brendan Donovan. He added a double to lead off the fifth before scoring on a sacrifice fly by Paul Goldschmidt. The 22-year-old shortstop has had an excellent first full season, slashing .267/.314/.416 with 15 homers, 80 runs scored, 55 RBI, and 11 steals across 621 plate appearances.

It’s Winn’s first four-RBI game as a major leaguer. He’s up to 15 homers, even though he has just 16 barrels on the season. Statcast thinks his slugging percentage should be about 40 points lower than his current .411 mark. He’s just 22, and it’s safe to assume his exit velocities will improve going forward, but he might wind up a little overrated next spring.

Winn’s only hit came in a big spot. After the Pirates took a one-run lead in the sixth, Winn took David Bednar deep for a game-tying solo homer to lead off the seventh. It was the 14th home run of the season for the 22-year-old shortstop. He’s slashing .271/.318/.411 with 75 runs scored, 51 RBI, and 11 steals across 595 plate appearances.

Winn had as many hits as he did while going 2-for-29 in his previous seven games. In spite of the occasional slump, the Cardinals haven’t wavered on Winn as a leadoff man since moving him to that spot in May. He’s hitting an unexceptional .251/.295/.394 in that role, but he has scored 57 runs in 88 games.

Since Thomas Saggese was called up earlier this week, he has started every single game with the Cardinals rotating out another player in the lineup each game. One game Masyn Winn sat, the next game Lars Nootbaar sat, and now Brendan Donovan will sit. It’s a bit of a frustrating situation for fantasy managers because you’ll never know who will sit in which game.

Winn gave the Cards a 4-1 lead with a solo blast off Yuki Matsui. The 22-year-old also singled, which improves his average to .285 to go with a healthy .765 OPS. There are a lot of really good young players in the National League, and Winn tends to get lost in that shuffle. He should not.

Winn’s homer extended the lead for the Cardinals to 4-2, and it came in the fifth inning off Bobby Miller. Winn has now homered in back-to-back games, and he’s up to 11 roundtrippers on the year. The 22-year-old shortstop has been a solid performer with a slash of .277/.327/.423, and there’s lots of reasons to believe he can be even better in the future.

The Cardinals were down early and never made this much of a game. Yet, Winn was able to get off the schneid after a 14 at-bat hitless streak. This was his 33rd multi-hit game of the season as his growth has pushed him up to lead-off for the Cardinals and given them confidence in their shortstop of the present and future.

The 22-year-old shortstop opened the scoring in the ballgame with a 402-foot (100.5-mph EV) two-run blast off of Justin Steele in the fourth inning. That was the extent of the Cardinals’ offense in the game. Winn finished the night 1-for-4 and is now hitting .279/.325/.414 with nine long balls and 41 RBI on the season.

It didn’t take the Cardinals long to get on the board thanks to Winn, who smacked a 433-foot lead-off homer off Max Scherzer to give them a 1-0 lead. It was the seventh homer of the year for Winn, who now has three homers on the month. He’ll look to add to that total in Wednesday’s series finale to close out the month.