Baltimore Orioles at St. Louis Cardinals

ST. LOUIS – Busch Stadium has been one of the toughest places to hit in the big leagues in 2026. Statcast’s calculated park factor for the home of the Cardinals this season is just 97, tied for the third-lowest in all of baseball. The Orioles, who before Tuesday had not played here since May 22, 2024, evidently did not get the memo. They exploded for eight runs in the fifth inning – their biggest inning of the season – en route to a 13-1 victory, kicked off and sustained by a monster evening from Pete Alonso. Alonso went 4-for-4 with a homer and a double, driving in four runs and scoring twice before exiting in the fifth inning with the game well in hand. “It was a super sick W,” Alonso said, as succinctly as anyone could. Alonso’s Statcast-projected 435-foot three-run homer against Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore opened the scoring in the third inning, and it only lasted three batters as Baltimore’s longest shot of the night. Christian Encarnacion-Strand tacked on a monster 450-foot shot deep into the bleachers in left-center field to get the O’s off to a four-run lead that they would not come close to relinquishing.​