Newly acquired Cardinal ready to get started with organization

Jan. 26—Nick Robertson has only been with the St. Louis Cardinals a little over a month. What has he learned so far?

"Just talking to Cardinals fans, they seem super excited about baseball," he said when the Cardinals Caravan visited Joplin recently. "That's all I've heard about the fans, is they love the team and they love everything about baseball here."

The right-handed reliever pitched 22 1/3 innings at the MLB level last year between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox.

The Cardinals acquired him Dec. 8 in a trade that sent Tyler O'Neill to the Red Sox.

Robertson will still have rookie status through the 2024 season because he appeared in such a small number of games at the MLB level last season.

Spring training will begin for pitchers and catchers in about two weeks, meaning Robertson will be headed down to Jupiter, Florida. He said he has some simple goals in mind for his first season with the Cardinals.

"Just go out there and compete," he said. "Try to attack every hitter and at the end of the day, help the team win. That's the end goal — to win as many games as possible. And win the last game of the year."

The 25-year-old is focused on getting ahead in the count. He feels comfortable getting ahead with any of his pitches depending on what feels best that day and based on the scouting report for the hitter he's facing.

His repertoire includes a fastball, changeup and slider.

"My changeup has been my best off-speed pitch. I started throwing a new slider this past year, and it's starting to get a lot better, so I'm really excited for that," Robertson said.

The adjustments to the slider make him feel like that can be his swing-and-miss pitch while the changeup will be more for pitching to contact. But Robertson said he trusts his ability to flip those if he needs to keep hitters off-balance.

BEING A DUKE

Before professional baseball, Robertson grew up in Virginia and wound up playing college baseball at James Madison University.

JMU wasn't really on his radar for colleges, with family members before him having gone to different schools. But Robertson said his decision was made when he made his official visit and saw the scenery around the college nestled in the Shenandoah Valley.

James Madison's mascot is the Dukes. The 2023-24 season has been a bright spot for the Dukes in many sports.

The football team finished the year 11-2 after losing just one regular season game in overtime to Appalachian State and then its bowl game to Air Force.

The men's basketball team is currently 18-2 and didn't lose a game until Jan. 6. The Dukes started the year with an upset over previously fourth-ranked Michigan State. JMU was ranked every week until suffering the loss to Southern Miss and has not reentered the AP top 25.

Women's sports have even found success over the past five or six seasons with the lacrosse team winning a national championship in 2018 and the softball team playing Oklahoma in the championship of the Women's College World Series. JMU fell in the last two games to OU after beating them to begin the WCWS.

"It's exciting to watch the school you went to transition from FCS to FBS (football) and kind of get nationally recognized for all the success they're having," Robertson said. "Even in the past, our women's teams have been phenomenal. It's just an exciting time to be a Duke."

Robertson was pitching for the Tulsa Drillers, the Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers back in 2021 when JMU played in the WCWS. The WCWS is played in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, every year so Robertson was able to make the trip to OKC to watch the softball team play.

OTHER SPORTS

Robertson also played basketball and golf in high school. He says it may be a surprise to some that he didn't play football despite standing at 6-foot-6 and weighing 265 pounds.

When he thinks about playing other sports, he admits missing basketball.

"I think my favorite sport to play was probably basketball just because I liked how quick it was and back-and-forth and you don't really have much time to think about anything," Robertson said. "I probably miss playing basketball because I knew after high school I wouldn't be playing it competitively anymore.

"I still love baseball more than anything else. That's why I'm still playing."

As for golf, Robertson still tries to enjoy 18 holes every now and then, but he has some conditions.

"I try to every once in a while when the weather is nice. If it gets below 50, I'm not going to go out there and tough it out," he said.

His golf game has improved based on his best judgment since his high school days. He considered himself to be OK as a teenager. As he's gotten older, he's learned it may be best not to hit the ball as far as possible, he said, because he'd rather keep it in the fairway and not lose golf balls.