3 STL Cardinals still giving encouraging signs and 2 who are failing

3. Nolan Arenado heating up again for Cardinals after slump

Whenever you see Nolan Arenado on the roster, every Cardinals fan and anyone who’s watched baseball over the past several years would reasonably believe that he was a reliable bat who would hit for high average and good power.

Through more than the first month of the season, however, that was not the case. By his standards, Arenado simply looked bad. In the month of April, he had just a .582 OPS while hitting just .231. Even worse, he had only two home runs and four total extra-base hits on the ledger. And that had people wondering what was going so wrong.

Things have turned around in a big way as of late, though. In the last 30 days for the Cardinals slugger, Arenado is slashing an impressive .323/.369/.656 (1.025 OPS) while mashing eight home runs, five doubles and one triple and driving in 23 runs. Perhaps more notably, after striking out 26 times across April, he’s cut that number to just 16 strikeouts over this latest 30-day stretch.

While Paul Goldschmidt is the reigning NL MVP, the Cardinals offense ultimately goes as Arenado goes. Again, he and Goldschmidt are two of only a few guys in baseball who can combine the high on-base rate with elite power. And with the lack of runs that has been plaguing St. Louis quite a bit as of late, seeing Arenado round back into his normal elite form suggests that better days should be ahead for the offense.