St. Louis @ Chicago preview
Wrigley Field
Last Meeting ( Sep 20, 2009 ) Chi. Cubs 6, St. Louis 3
Amazingly enough, through the season’s first 48 games, one of baseball’s best rivalries hasn’t yet gotten underway.
That will change on Friday when the Chicago Cubs welcome the St. Louis Cardinals to town for a three-game set.
The way the schedule worked out, the two teams don’t face each other much early on, instead they will do battle 12 times in the second half of the campaign during what figures to be a key stretch between the rivals.
The Cardinals avoided a sweep at the hands of San Diego on Thursday and sit at 27-21, one game back of Cincinnati in the National League Central. The Cubs, who took two of three from the Los Angeles Dodgers, sit four games behind St. Louis.
After struggling to put across runs in the previous two games, the Cardinals got a much-needed breakout game from Albert Pujols in Thursday’s 8-3 win over the Padres.
Pujols homered and drove in three runs to snap a career-high tying drought of 11 games in which he failed to record an RBI. His homer was just the second in 29 games for the slugger, who entered mired in a 3-for-20 slump.
Teammate Brendan Ryan also helped the cause by finishing 4-for-4 with a home run.
St. Louis starter Chris Carpenter will aim to get back into the win column after a so-so effort in his last outing. The right-hander allowed four earned runs on eight hits in six innings to take a no-decision against the Los Angeles Angels.
The shaky outing aside, Carpenter has been otherwise solid in going 5-1 with a 3.09 ERA. One thing of concern, however, has been his tendency to surrender home runs. He has already served up nine after allowing just seven all of last season.
Carpenter been downright dominant when facing the Cubs during his career. In that span, he is 9-3 with a 2.81 ERA in 17 starts.
Chicago will counter with right-hander Randy Wells, who hasn’t won in four starts. He had a pair of losses followed by two no-decisions.
Prior to that, Wells (3.90 ERA) had won three consecutive starts.
The Cubs have received strong pitching performances in two of their last three as Ryan Dempster tossed eight shutout innings on Tuesday and Ted Lilly didn’t allow a run in seven frames on Thursday.
Carlos Marmol closed out Thursday’s win for his fifth straight save and has converted 11 of 13 on the season.