The situation: With Lance Berkman going down with a knee injury in Saturday's game against the Dodgers, the Cardinals called on their top hitting prospect at Triple-A to replace him. Last year's Texas League MVP, Matt Adams was hitting .340/.375/.603 in 37 games, including a 13-for-28 (.464) mark in his past seven games with three doubles, three home runs and 12 RBIs.
Background: It took some time for Adams to be taken seriously as a prospect. A 23rd-round pick in 2009 out of Slippery Rock University (and now the first player from that school to reach the majors), Adams hit .310/.355/.541 in his full-season debut at Low-A Quad Cities, but barely registered a blip on the prospect radar as he was seen as a bad-bodied, first base-only type with no résumé, beating up on inferior competition. That all changed in 2011, when bumped up two levels to Double-A, as he slugged .300/.357/.566 at Double-A Springfield with 32 home runs in 101 games, leaving scouts saying that despite his background and concerns about his size, Adams' bat is very much for real.