MILWAUKEE _ Reunited with his Mountain Dew-green arm sleeve, Marcell Ozuna went on a tear during #PlayersWeekend with seven RBIs in the four-game sweep of Colorado to go with 10 hits on the home stand, two homers, and a 1.243 OPS that was downright Dylan Carlson-esque.
It had been months since he last wore the sleeve.
It has been years since the Cardinals have seen what Ozuna could pull off if he keeps going green.
Ozuna reaches this week's series at Miller Park, one of the best places to hit in the National League, with 74 RBIs. On his heels is first baseman Paul Goldschmidt who enters Miller Park, the place where he's hit better than any visitor ever, with 71 RBIs. They each have 33 games remaining � a little more than a month � to give the Cardinals something they have been seeking since 2012.
Not since Matt Holliday drove home 102 runs in the Cardinals' first season without Albert Pujols has there been a 100-RBI man in St. Louis. Allen Craig came the closest with 97 RBIs in 2013, and a year later he was traded. Ozuna, who missed a month with a fractured hand, or Goldschmidt will have to average about an RBI a game to reach 100. Both had at least 120 RBIs in 2017 for Miami and Arizona, respectively.
It's possible they could get their this fall, and with this season's hitter-happy climate it's even plausible.
Already this season, there are seven hitters with 100 RBIs from seven different teams in the National League. There are nine players total with 100 RBIs, and the Angels' Mike Trout is on deck with 99.
Each of the Cardinals' division rivals have had a 100-RBI season this season or last, and since the Cardinals' last 100 RBI season, there have been 16 100-RBI seasons in the National League Central. The only teams in the NL with streaks as long without a 100-RBI hitter are Philadelphia (Ryan Howard, 2011) and San Francisco (Buster Posey, 2012), and Bryce Harper is on pace to end the Phillies' drought. He has 92 so far this season.
Like batting average, the value of the RBI has been diminished during the advanced-analytics age. It doesn't shine like the last untarnished jewel in the Triple Crown � homers � and it doesn't reveal a hitter like OPS or project damage like exit velocity. It's a context stat.
To be an RBI Santa Claus it helps to have a bunch of OBP elves skittering around on base to build rallies. A players' RBIs are a measure of how many opportunities he has with runners on base, not just what he did in those opportunities. Josh Bell is the first of the NL Central players to reach 100 RBIs this season, and no wonder � he is one of baseball's leaders in at-bats with runners in scoring position, at 134. He's raked in those spots with a .328 average and a 1.115.
Consider he has 32 more RBIs than Goldschmidt.
He also has 52 more at-bats with a runner in scoring position (RISP).
If Goldschmidt produced at the same RISP rate he has all season those 52 extra at-bats would mean 20 more RBIs for him, and he'd be a shoo-in for the Cardinals' first 100-RBI season in years. Others would have created those opportunities for him.
We can all agree on that aspect of the RBI � context matters � but let's not drag it over into the recycling bin with a garbage stat like fielding percentage or a narrative stat like wins just yet. The RBI still has some value, and it's right there in the name, and it just happens to be the most important stat of them all in baseball. For a team to win, it must score runs. For a batter to get an RBI, a run must score. And while the Cardinals have been able to do that at times since 2012 � they led the league in scoring on the way to the pennant in 2013 � the offense has been splotchy a lot of this season, and RBIs are a symptom of that. The Cardinals haven't put the middle of the order in position to drive in runs enough, and they haven't driven in runs enough.
The result is the longest stretch without a 100-RBI hitter in 100 years.
In 1886, on the way to the championship the Cardinals don't claim, Tip O'Neill had the first 100-RBI season in the club's recorded history. He drove in 107, hit .328, and off the American Association's St. Louis Browns went to win the league's championship. The next season, O'Neill _ the left fielder not the Speaker of the House _ had 123 RBIs and ledd the American Association in every significant offensive category (runs, hits, doubles, triples, homers, RBIs, average, OBP, slugging, and OPS), and for good measure stole 30 bases. He struck out 20 times.
In 1899, seven seasons after the Cardinals moved to the National League and one year before they were known as the Cardinals, baseball pulled off an unusual swap of rosters. The Cleveland Spiders were uprooted as a roster and replanted as the Browns in St. Louis, where the larger crowds were gathering for games. This new team for an existing franchise was given the name the Perfectos, and shortstop Bobby Wallace, looking snappy in the red that would give the team its Cardinals nickname, had 108 RBIs. At 25, the former Spider also had 12 homers and a .811 OPS.
The Cardinals would go until 1921 before another 100-RBI season.
That is the last time they went this long.
In 1921, two Cardinals had at least 100 RBIs. Outfielder Austin McHenry, in his last full season in the majors, hit .350 and drove home 102. A future Hall of Famer, in the first year of his unparalleled dominance in the NL, would drive home 126. Rogers Hornsby, at 24, had his first career century season, and he overwhelmed the NL, leading in hits (235), average (.397), OPS (1.097), triples (18), doubles (44), and of course RBIs. He fell shy of the Triple Crown because High Pockets Kelly hit 23 homers for the New York Giants. Hornsby had 21.
In three of five seasons around that time, Hornsby had at least 100 RBIs, and that became a regularly occurring milestone in the Cardinals' lineup. If it wasn't Hornsby it was Jim Bottomley, if not Bottomley then it was Johnny Mize and then Stan Musial and then Stan Musial again and then Stan Musial 11 times over, and then Bill White, Ted Simmons, and famously Tommy Herr (110 RBIs with only eight homers in 1985). The longest the Cardinals have gone without a 100-RBI hitter is four consecutive seasons until this current sag. From 1998 to 2010, a stretch from Mark McGwire's 70 homers to Pujols and his uncanny decade, the Cardinals had at least one 100-RBI hitter every season. In 2004, they had three: Pujols, Jim Edmonds, and recently inducted Cardinals Hall of Famer Scott Rolen.
Edmonds, in 2004, is the last lefthanded hitter to have 100 RBIs for the Cardinals.
The streak of seasons with at least one 100-RBI hitter stopped in 2010 because Pujols had 99 RBIs in 2011, his final season with the Cardinals.
Holliday got to 100 in 2012.
They've been waiting and searching ever since.
The last stretch in baseball without a 100-RBI hitter belongs to Tampa Bay, who last had one batter get at least 100 RBIs in 2010, and the Rays appear unlikely to get one this season. Minnesota is tied with the Cardinals, dating back to 2012. The other 25 teams have all had at least one 100-RBI season since 2012. The Brewers, who host the Cardinals for a three-game series that starts Monday night, had two in 2018 � and they've already traded one, Jesus Aguilar. Go figure. He got to hit behind the other 100-RBI hitter for the Brew Crew, league MVP Christian Yelich.
Often it's the team that makes a hitter a 100-RBI man.
In the Cardinals' case, with a month to go and a division lead to hold, a 100-RBI hitter could be what makes the team.
