LOS ANGELES — Matt Adams could see something special going on with the St. Louis Cardinals from the opposing side of the field with the Washington Nationals.
He recognized the solid pitching and timely hitting that have made the Cardinals baseball’s hottest team in the dog days of August. So Adams couldn’t believe his luck when he found out St. Louis claimed him off waivers this week.
The move brings Adams back to the organization that drafted him in 2009. More importantly, he’s on a team that’s gone from wild-card hopeful to threatening the NL Central-leading Cubs.
“They’re playing with a fire and taking every pitch like it’s the last pitch they’ll ever play,” Adams said.
“How they go about their daily business is something special to watch.”
St. Louis has undergone a transformation since firing Manager Mike Matheny on July 14.
At that time the Cardinals were 47-46 and trailed the Cubs by seven games. After sweeping the Dodgers on Wednesday to win their eighth consecutive series, the Cardinals have won 24 of 35 and are 17-4 this month.
Riding an eight-game road winning streak, St. Louis visits Colorado on Friday. The Cardinals are 37-29 away from home this season.
“Everyone’s kind of getting amped up,” second baseman Kolten Wong said.
The turnaround is happening under bench coach Mike Shildt, who replaced Matheny when he was fired after seven years in a dramatic move by a club that hasn’t changed managers often. Matheny was just the second since 1996.
Shildt began as a scout with the Cardinals and eventually combined those duties with being a part-time minor league coach. Elevating the 50-year-old veteran to interim status has gone over well in the clubhouse.
“Shildt’s been really good at letting us play our own game and letting us play the way we want to play. That’s the biggest thing,” Wong said. “We have so many different personalities and different guys in this clubhouse. You just have to allow people to be themselves and eventually people are going to mesh together.”
Adams is eager to contribute. He could see time at first base against right-handed pitching or in left field with Marcell Ozuna on the disabled list, or in right field.
“I just kind of want to stay out of everybody’s way and do my part, and mesh with them,” Adams said. “I don’t want to be that guy who comes in here and tries to do too much and messes up something special.”
PADRES: Christian Villanueva looked poised to finish as strong as he started 2018. Now the 27-year-old rookie faces the sobering proposition that a fractured finger could end his year.
“It’s definitely frustrating,” Villanueva said. “I feel like I had gotten my rhythm and was playing the way I wanted to play.”
Given his first opportunity to start in the majors, Villanueva paired eight homers with a 1.103 OPS as the NL rookie of the month in April. He posted a .575 OPS over his next 71 games before an August surge positioned him for a large chunk of playing time as the season came to a close.
Wil Myers was going to play third base, but Villanueva would get a look at second base and perhaps shortstop, thanks in large part to a bat that produced a .346 average this month.
“He made some really good adjustments in August,” Manager Andy Green said. “They were probably the most encouraging things we saw since the beginning of the season.”
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