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A few members of the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ing staff and manager Oliver Marmol asked him one evening to grab a drink with them, right there at the hotel. Pull up a chair. Enjoy the company. The manager would say later that alleviating the pressure accumulating on a player can “start sometimes just by grabbing a beer together.â€� The specific beverage was not as important as the conversation, which strayed away from baseball. Burleson described it “as just people talking on a personal levelâ€� and how much that meant to him.

A ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ said it was a shared chance to be “human.â€�

“It’s nice to connect outside of the baseball field, and sometimes it’s just as important,â€� said bench ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Daniel Descalso early Thursday morning when asked about that evening Burleson had with him and others in Cincinnati. “I think that’s part of the job in today’s game — to relate to the player and let them know they’re more than just a numbers in the lineup.â€�

What’s followed has everything to do with the names now in that lineup.

Burleson emerged steadily in the weeks that followed Cincinnati — a hit here, an extra-base pop there — and by June he’s been gangbusters. Within an eventful doubleheader sweep Thursday at Rate Field against the White Sox, Burleson had four hits total and a three-run homer in the evening game. In June, he’s batting .400 (24-for-60), and since that conversation away from the field in Cincinnati he’s batting .352 and slugging .576 in his past 125 at-bats.

As clear as the doubleheader’s lineups that had him batting No. 3 in each game Thursday, Burleson has rewritten the Cardinals’ “runway� plans with his takeoff, and playing time for others is adjusting around him.

“Continuing to find out about him is important,� Marmol said.

As the Cardinals return home for a revealing home stand against Cincinnati and the Cubs, Burleson has become a fixture in the lineup, which often means starting in the outfield. That puts the squeeze on starts for Jordan Walker as it has since his return from the injured list. Or if Burleson is at designated hitter then it’s trickier to get Nolan Gorman at-bats unless Ivan Herrera catches. The only solution to fit all of the young hitters into the lineup — or onto the “runway,� as the Cardinals call it this season — is to start more than nine players, something that MLB rules, to date, do not permit.

“I don’t think there’s a stock answer or an easy answer,� Marmol said in his office this week. “I think it’s actually fairly difficult, but certain guys are playing well, and I think when you’re trying to find out about what guys are capable of, it’s not just one bucket of players. You’re trying to find out what you have in general. And when certain guys are playing well, reward them and allow them to continue to show they can hold onto that for a period of time. It’s not as easy as running certain guys out there regardless of performance.�

Marmol agreed that Burleson has forced the choices and raised the organization’s view of his ceiling in the process.

For Burleson, 26, that’s been his career curve.

“I feel like I’ve had to prove throughout my time in the big leagues, and each year it’s been different what I’ve had to prove,� Burleson said. “This year, it’s been prove that I can hit lefties. Last year, it was just prove that I can hit at this level. So, it’s something that I’ve always felt like I’ve had to prove to people.�

Referring back to their conversation in Cincinnati, Descalso added: “We get it. We’ve been there. I’ve been there in that spot where you’re trying to carve out a role for yourself but you also want to be a winning player on a winning team and you try to balance all of it while not always playing. It’s not easy to do.�

There was little doubt that the Cardinals’ 2020 draft pick would be able to make contact in the majors. Burleson has a knack for reaching pitches throughout the strike zone and around it — and putting the ball in play. It’s a skill the Cardinals have worked with him on maximizing but getting more comfortable looking for pitches to drive early in the count and trusting his ability to make contact with two strikes.

At the ballpark, it’s been the conversation around Burleson for several years — could he be more selective with his swings early, take more aggressive swings early, and play for power while going for contact in two-strike situations.

He could hit for average. Could he up the damage?

“I know it has something to do with the swing,� Burleson said. “I know it has something to do with pitch selection, approach. It kind of all goes hand in hand. I just had time to redefine that and — I don’t want to say perfect it, because I’ll perfect it. But I’m getting better at it. I definitely feel like I’m slugging differently this year than last year.

“Not chasing results,� he concluded, “but hopefully getting to a place where I get results.�

Burleson described it once as “earning a pitch to hit.�

That’s the conversation that Marmol overhears between Burleson and the hitting ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥es. In the Cardinals’ victory Tuesday against the White Sox, Burleson told ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Brant Brown that he didn’t want to “swing under this guyâ€� and that if he “swung at the top of the zone or above the zone, I’m going to be OK.â€� Burleson’s plan was to miss up, and when he got a pitch way, way up, he was ready and drove it. Burleson went 3 for 5 Tuesday, 7 for 13 in the series sweep, and each pitch he hit he could trace back to how he earned it. He counted on a fastball after driving two off-speed pitches.

Similarly, he’s earning the playing time by what he’s produced during that playing time, and the more playing time is giving him the experience do produce more.

And that playing time has come against lefties.

Entering the doubleheader Thursday, Burleson had seven hits in his previous 14 at-bats against left-handed pitchers. It’s a limited sample size, but it’s a sign of more opportunity.

Burleson fielded a question on past struggles vs. lefties with bluntness.

“It’s the truth,� Burleson said. “That’s what has kind of kept me out from being an everyday guy is my production against lefties. That’s an area where I need to be better, and I feel like I’ve kind of made progress in that aspect of it.

“I’m probably more homed-in on those at-bats than I am against righties,� he said, laughing. “Which is probably not good.�

What evolved from more looks at lefties and more starters overall during the seven-game road trip was a significant part of the Cardinals’ doubleheader sweep of the White Sox. Marmol has said Burleson hit his way into the everyday lineup, and that he likes the look of left-handed Burleson beside right-handed Willson Contreras.

In 5-4 first game victory of the doubleheader, Contreras crushed a two-run homer into the wind that tied the game as a prelude to Yohel Pozo’s pinch-hit, RBI single. In the second game — an 8-6 victory in extra innings — Burleson drove an opposite-field home run for three RBIs that erased an 0-1 deficit. Nolan Arenado followed with a solo shot for his 350th career homer and the Cardinals’ first back-to-back homers since April. Combined in the doubleheader, Burleson and Contreras went 6 for 15 and slugged .800 with eight RBIs.

Burleson had four of the hits. Contreras had five of the RBIs.

“Two scary at-bats right now, right?� Marmol said late Thursday. “They can beat you a lot of different ways. They can shoot you the other way and drive in a couple of runs that way. They can leave the yard. It’s just a very tough at-bat. Both of them are in a really good spot.�

For Burleson, that spot is the lineup.

Regardless of where the conversation takes place, Burleson has been consistent when it turns to baseball and what he’s been striving for: giving the manager every reason to keep him in the lineup and fewer to write him out.

“I think I’m a better hitter this year — which is contributing to more slug,� Burleson said. “It’s not that I didn’t have an approach before. But I have a better understanding of what my approach is. I’m able to use that to my advantage.�