Decatur High School alum Jordan Walker had a preseason injury scare, but he put the injury behind him with a hot start to the St. Louis Cardinals’ regular season schedule.

Walker has been back to his consistent ways, tallying a hit in each of the Cardinals’ first five games – including a solo-shot homerun, an RBI, and a stolen base in a 9-7 loss to the Angels. The home run was his first of his season, but the start Walker is off to in 2025 looks more like his rookie season when he hit 16 home runs and 51 RBIs.

Walker took a step back last season, getting demoted to minor league ball after a poor beginning to a season that he started at right field in the first game for the Cardinals.

However, as a rookie in 2023, Walker tied a record from 1912 for consecutive hits by a rookie younger than 21 years old and started more than 100 games for the Cardinals – the organization that drafted Walker with the No. 21 pick in the 2020 MLB Draft.

“I did a better job of that in [2023], and then the next year I … tried to do too much. I think this year’s main focus is to not put too much pressure on myself and not do too much,” Walker said in a spring game interview on MLB.com. “I play best when I’m … relaxing and doing my thing.”

The Cardinals are off to a 4-2 start, which is currently the best record in the MLB’s National League.

While St. Luis is only six games into its 162-game schedule, Walker returns home to Atlanta when his St. Luis Cardinals play a three-game series April 21 – 23 at Truist Park.

While at Decatur, Walker was Perfect Game’s No.1 high school baseball player and ranked as a top 40 MLB prospect by publications such as MLB.com and Baseball America.

Despite only playing in 16 games during his senior season, before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the remainder of the baseball season, Walker won the Georgia Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year award after hitting .457 with four home runs.