San Francisco @ St. Louis preview
Busch Stadium
Last Meeting ( Aug 21, 2010 ) San Francisco 1, St. Louis 5
The St. Louis Cardinals (66-54) come into the finale of Sunday’s three-game set feeling a lot better about themselves after snapping a season-high five-game losing streak on Saturday with a 5-1 win over the San Francisco Giants.
With the win, the Cardinals (66-54) are now just 2-5 since getting back to Busch Stadium. They dropped two against the Chicago Cubs and were swept by the Brewers in a mini two-game set before San Francisco (69-55) came and took the first game of this series from them.
St. Louis is now 3 1/2 games back of the Cincinnati Reds in the NL Central and pulled within two games of Philadelphia in the wild card standings, while San Francisco dropped one game behind the Phillies heading into today’s matinee.
The Cardinals send rookie Jaime Garcia to the hill against Barry Zito in a matchup of left-handers.
Garcia (10-6) has dropped two of his last three starts, suffering a tough 3-2 loss to Milwaukee in his last trip to the hill. He went six innings, giving up a home run and three walks, but zero earned runs for the hard-luck loss.
Garcia has failed to get through at least six innings in two of his last three starts. And he’s gotten through the seventh inning in just two of his last 10 outings.
Meanwhile, Zito (8-7, 3.56) is happy to be back in the middle of a pennant race down the stretch.
Zito is winless in his last six starts, going 0-3 with three no-decisions. He just one win in his last 12 starts, but he hasn’t had much help in a lot of those. He held his opposition to fewer than four runs in eight of those outings.
Even in his lone victory during that span, Zito had to throw eight shutout innings in a 1-0 victory over the New York Mets on July 16.
However, he has had problems against St. Louis this year, going 0-2 with an 8.10 ERA at Busch Stadium.
Zito will have to contend with a red-hot Albert Pujols. The Cardinals’ first baseman is hitting .419 over his last 18 games and has a team-leading 32 home runs and 88 RBIs to go along with a .316 season average.
St. Louis’ acquisition of Pedro Feliz to shore up its infield defense is already paying some dividends at the dish as well. Feliz, a former member of the San Francisco Giants, is 4-for-8 since joining the Cardinals on Thursday.