3 keys for the Cardinals to keep the good times rolling with grueling schedule ahead

Discover their power stroke

As the Cardinals' offense has begun to sputter a bit and slip in the rankings from their hot early-season performance, more and more attention is being brought to their lack of power as a team, and rightfully so.

The Cardinals still rank fourth in all of baseball in doubles, which is a very good sign and is a major reason why they have done damage until as of late, but they now sit 25th in all of baseball in team home runs, a number that is really hard to get by with in today's game.

Even as one of the best batting average teams in baseball and among the best on-base teams as well, pitching in this day and age makes it extremely difficult to string together enough singles and walks in an inning to score a lot of runs. Don't get me wrong, I love what we are seeing from the Cardinals' offense in that regard, but the lack of home runs to accompany that gives them a smaller margin for error on any given day.

Lars Nootbaar, the home run leader thus far, is tied for 69th in all of baseball in home runs thus far. That's not good enough for a team lead. The Cardinals need someone to provide more power than that.

Part of the bad news for the Cardinals is that, frankly, they don't have a clear power bat in their lineup. Willson Contreras and Ivan Herrera can certainly provide more than they have thus far, but as a collective unit, they have a lot of guys that are more in the 15-20 HR range, with perhaps the upside of 25 HR if things break right.

I have a piece coming out on this later today, but I do think this points to some of the reasons why John Mozeliak and the Cardinals front office were clear about Nolan Gorman being a runway guy this year. His power in the lineup wouldn't fix their issues, but man, it sure could help a lot.

Whether it's Gorman being reinserted into the lineup or just an increase in power production from a few of those bats, the Cardinals really need to get the ball over the fence more often in the month of June. I'm not saying they need to become some home run machine as a unit, but ranking closer to the middle of the pack would go a long way.