Milwaukee @ St. Louis preview
Busch Stadium
Last Meeting ( Aug 17, 2010 ) Milwaukee 3, St. Louis 2
The suddenly skidding St. Louis Cardinals need someone to break them out of their funk. Adam Wainwright might just be the guy.
The Cardinals will be looking to snap a three-game slide behind Wainwright when they close out a two-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday.
Wainwright (17-6) has allowed a total of four hits in 16 scoreless innings over his last two starts, dropping his ERA to a major league-low 1.99 and his WHIP to a National League-best 0.97.
Those numbers, along with his 17 wins - tied for first in the majors with Colorado’s Ubaldo Jimenez - and 158 strikeouts (third in the NL) have him at the front of the pack in a very crowded NL Cy Young Award race.
Surpassing Chris Carpenter as St. Louis’ ace this season, Wainwright has allowed one or no runs in eight of his last nine starts and needs to keep that pace up with the Cardinals locked in a tight battle with the Cincinnati Reds atop the NL Central.
The Cardinals grabbed a one-game lead with a sweep of the Reds last week, but watched that advantage evaporate over the weekend while dropping two of three to the lowly Chicago Cubs.
Tuesday’s 3-2 loss in the series opener against Milwaukee combined with Cincinnati’s win over the Arizona Diamondbacks dropped St. Louis two games back in the division.
After pitching 233 innings in 2009, Wainwright has shown that he is physically able to handle the load through September, a good sign with a 10-game road trip to end August and another series against the Reds, two more against the rival Cubs and four-game sets against division leaders Atlanta and San Diego coming up in the final month.
The Brewers have never presented a problem for Wainwright, who owns a 7-3 record with a 1.94 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP in 20 career appearances - 13 starts - against the division rivals. He last faced them on the Fourth of July, allowing one run and five hits while striking out nine and walking none in a complete-game win.
Milwaukee will counter with veteran left-hander Randy Wolf (9-9). One of the bigger disappointments on the Brewers’ underwhelming staff, Wolf has failed to live up to the three-year, $30 million contract he signed with the club in the offseason.
His ERA is up by over a run and a half from his 3.23 mark last season and inconsistency has been the biggest issue, with Wolf allowing four runs or more in 10 different starts this season and two runs or less in 12 outings.
One of his better starts came against St. Louis on July 1, when Wolf allowed one run on four hits in 6 1/3 innings to earn a win.