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CINCINNATI — A change in the lineup that Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol planned to unveil Tuesday had to wait until Wednesday for him to see how it looked, and 18 innings later, he had watched an eyeful.

The move to reward and jolt a player energized a team.

Masyn Winn vaulted from the back of the lineup to the front line of the Cardinals’ long-awaited flex of power. In his big league debut as a No. 2 hitter, Winn hit two home runs in the Cardinals’ afternoon game and scored twice in the evening victory as they swept a doubleheader against Cincinnati at Great American Ball Park. The Cardinals stirred from an offensive snooze to hit four homers in a 6-0 win in Game 1 and then added two quickly in the first two innings of Game 2 on the way to a 9-1 drubbing.

Pedro Pages’ solo homer to punctuate a plucky 11-pitch at-bat was the only rally of the day in which Winn wasn’t involved.

“When I get going,� Winn said, “I feel like the rest of the team’s energy changes.�

“Masyn just brings a different element, a lot of energy,� Marmol said.

After a chilly spring followed by a cold start to the season, Winn began the year at the tail end of the Cardinals lineup — the wraparound hitter, Nos. 8 or 9 and a fit there for his speed and his ability to make contact. He had the same bottom-line measure for being at the bottom of an order as he does for hitting toward the top. The top means more at-bats, the end means fewer, and he’d prefer more.

In the past few weeks — slowed briefly by his stay on the injured list to recover from a back injury — Winn’s production had started to perk up. He hit .294 over the previous 51 at-bats coming into Wednesday’s game with a .362 on-base percentage. Marmol wanted to acknowledge that improvement with a climb in the lineup and use that move to try two different looks. Instead of returning the leadoff spot he leased most of this past season, Winn tagged into No. 2 spot for Willson Contreras. Contreras moved into the middle of the lineup. That kept left-handed hitters Lars Nootbaar and Brendan Donovan at Nos. 1 and 3, respectively, which Marmol wanted.

It was a familiar spot for Contreras.

It was a completely new one for Winn.

On the first pitch he saw batting second, he homered.

With a solo homer in the first inning of Game 1, Winn provided the one run that Miles Mikolas spent his entire 5 1/3 scoreless innings protecting. When the Cardinals opened the afternoon game with three consecutive homers in the ninth inning, Winn was the punctuation. The first trio of Cardinals since at least 1892 to hit back-to-back-to-back homers in a ninth inning were Victor Scott II, Nootbaar and then Winn. His first big game batting No. 2 was also his first big league game with at least two homers. They bookended two walks, and they preceded a single and a double in the evening winning.

In his first seven plate appearances in the No. 2 spot, Masyn had four hits, two walks, four runs and a stolen base.

“It allows Masyn to kind of jump-start a little bit of what we saw the last couple of games up top,� Marmol said. “Brings energy. Brings a solid, tough at-bat. When you think of a tough at-bat: You have to come in the zone on Noot. You have to come in the zone on Donny. It’s hard to punch out Masyn. Those are three really difficult at-bats, and then you’ve got two guys (Contreras and Nolan Arenado) who when they get going, they hit the ball all over the yard and hit some homers. I think it’s a good combination, and we’ll continue to take a look at it.�

Whether Winn is the fit at No. 2 will take more than two games to decide, but the concept clearly fits what’s becoming a trait of this year’s lineup.

They don’t mind seeing pitches.

They’ll chew up the scenery and the starter waiting for one.

Nootbaar has seen the 12th-most pitches of any hitter this season, and he’s done that in fewer games than six batters ahead of him. The Cardinals have three batters averaging more than four pitches a plate appearances: Nootbaar (4.19), Jordan Walker (4.15) and Scott (4.00). Those numbers are all entering play Wednesday. Contreras is next at 3.88 pitches per plate appearance.

The Cardinals have different descriptions for it — “stubborn� is common — but it’s an approach that they talk about committing themselves to during games, and that was especially advantageous against the Reds’ evening starter, Chase Petty, in his major league debut.

“It’s nice whenever you can waste pitches,� Winn said. “Anything after five pitches, six pitches is a productive at-bat. If you can get a hit along with it, that kills — that kills the pitcher for sure.�

“It’s just battle, battle until you get that pitch,� Pages said.

Pages had the second-longest at-bat in the majors this season, which resulted in a home run in the second inning. He worked Petty through 11 pitches. Pages fouled off six consecutive, including four breaking pitches. Pages conceded later that the at-bat was exhausting — until it was exhilarating. After fouling off several sliders, Pages got one over the plate and in his path. He put it into the seats for a solo homer that widened the Cardinals lead to 4-0.

The next inning, Winn led off with a double, again off Petty.

It came on the eighth pitch.

Five batters later, the Cardinals had a 7-0 lead, and Petty’s debut was done after allowing nine runs on seven hits through 2 1/3 innings.

“We’ve done that quite a bit,� Marmol said. “Every game, there’s two guys who have those types of at-bats, really driving that pitch count up on the starter. Even if we don’t end up getting to them, we knock an inning off of what they were capable of doing.�

And that starts from the top.

For the 11th time in the Cardinals’ first 31 games, Nootbaar led off Wednesday’s game with a walk. That guarantees at least four pitches. Against Petty, Nootbaar saw six. Winn followed with a two-strike single, and that eventually got the inning to Contreras in his new spot for the game: cleanup. He crushed a pitch 421 feet to center field for a swift 3-0 lead. The home run came on Petty’s 14th pitch of the inning, and the way the inning unfolded captured the thrill Winn welcomes from batting near the top of the order.

“Especially with Nootbaar walking as much as he does, it opens up a lot,� Winn said. “I can bunt for a hit. They have to throw strikes to me. I can get something I like and try to drive it.�

An offense that had been stuck on a run for most of the past three games opened up with the three runs off Contreras bat and a new dynamic at the top of the lineup.

Marmol wanted to see how it worked.

Now, he wants to see it again.

Then, he’ll see how long it lasts.

“It’s hard to take two games from anybody,� Marmol said. “This group has been playing the game the right way. It hasn’t gone our way when it comes to close games, road, the whole deal. A day like today hopefully sparks something. We need to continue to build off of that.�