Matt Holliday hopeful for more St. Louis Cardinals home runs in 2015

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St. Louis Cardinals left fielder Matt Holliday told reporters over the weekend that the St. Louis Cardinals will hit more home runs during the 2015 season.

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“I don’t know why almost to the man we almost had a career low homer total,” Holliday told reporters during the Winter Warm-Up this weekend. “You would think it would have something to do with how the ballpark played; there’s got to be some kind of a reason but maybe it was just one of those years where nobody was able to consistently get the home run swing going. The more you try to hit home runs, it seems the less it happens. Hopefully we come in this year with the approach of having a good offense and hitting the ball up the middle. Home runs really happen by having a good swing with a good approach and catching the ball just a hair underneath. It’s hard to explain. I think our lineup will score a lot more runs this year. It would be crazy not to think that most of our guys will be back more to what they average in their career.”

While offense has been considered to be on a decline looking at the numbers over the past few seasons, the St. Louis Cardinals had an interesting 2014 season compared to the year before when the team won the National League Championship.

In 2013, the Cardinals hit .269/.332/.401 with 125 home runs and 745 runs batted in. The team recorded an OPS of .733 in 2013. This past season saw the Cardinals record a hitting line of .253/.320/.369 with 105 home runs and 585 runs batted in. The team had a recorded OPS of .689 in 2014.

With runners in scoring position in 2014, the Cardinals hit .254/.336/.365 with an OPS of .701 this season. With RISP in 2014, the team only hit 22 home runs and drove in 450 runs.

What the 2013 Cardinals team did is astonishing. The club hit .330/.402/.463 with an OPS of .865 with runners in scoring position. While the team only hit 25 home runs, they drove in a whopping 583 runs! Allen Craig played a key role in this with his 2013 hitting line of .454/.500/.638 and an OPS of 1.138.