Cardinals: Nolan Arenado has first-career curtain call in home opener

Nolan Arenado has been in a St. Louis Cardinals uniform for a week. The early returns are incredibly promising, as evidenced on Thursday night.

It only took one game at Busch Stadium for Nolan Arenado to have his first moment with the St. Louis Cardinals.

With the game tied at 1, and Drew Rasmussen on the mound for the Milwaukee Brewers, Arenado mashed a tater to left field to give the Cardinals a 3-1 lead. He immediately followed it up with a curtain call — something he told reporters, including Brenden Schaeffer of KMOV, that he had not done in his career with the Colorado Rockies.

That Arenado was able to do that, let alone in his first game with the Cardinals, underscores why he wanted to be in the organization so badly. But we just didn’t realize how badly he wanted to be in St. Louis. Adam Wainwright revealed after the game that Arenado would occasionally send him videos the last couple years of him making plays and telling Wainwright, “Show this to Mo.”

Mo, of course, is Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak. It is unclear if Mozeliak did in fact receive those videos, but even though it took a few years, it perhaps feels like destiny that Arenado ended up in St. Louis.

But moments like this are why they prioritized Arenado this offseason. He established himself as a Hall of Fame caliber third baseman with the Rockies, often hitting 30+ home runs and playing elite caliber defense. And Thursday was just a glimpse of what he is capable of, and what figures to be the first of many signature moments in a Cardinals uniform.

Arenado got his wish. Mozeliak got his man. And they are prospering because of it.