Tampa Bay @ St. Louis preview
Busch Stadium
Last Meeting ( Aug 10, 2023 ) St. Louis 5, Tampa Bay 2
With his St. Louis Cardinals fading in the National League wild-card race, manager Oliver Marmol assured reporters that the team understands the big picture.
The Cardinals have lost four of their last five games and eight of 12 heading into their three-game home series with the Tampa Bay Rays, which begins Tuesday night.
"Players have urgency, staff has urgency," Marmol said. "Everybody is pretty aware of our situation and what we need to do to get where we want to get to."
What they need to do is hit. The Cardinals went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position Monday in a 6-0 loss to the New York Mets. The contest was a makeup game scheduled following a May 8 postponement.
St. Louis has scored three runs or fewer nine times in 17 games since the All-Star break.
"It's easy to just point out the runners in scoring position, but some guys are quite honestly feeling good about where they're at and some guys aren't," Marmol said. "I know that's kind of been the case throughout course of the whole year, but it's the reality.
"There are guys who are pretty tired and are grinding through it and there are guys who just don't feel great where they are offensively."
The Cardinals will start Sonny Gray (10-6, 3.72 ERA) to open the series. In his latest outing, against the Cubs on Thursday, Gray allowed two runs on five hits in seven innings. He struck out nine and walked just one in a no-decision.
Gray is 4-6 with a 4.20 ERA in 15 career appearances, including 13 starts, against the Rays.
Tampa Bay will give left-hander Jeffrey Springs (0-0, 4.91) his second start since his return from Tommy John surgery. He allowed two runs on six hits in 3 2/3 innings against the Miami Marlins on July 30.
Springs struck out three and walked one in his first major league game since April 13, 2023.
"It felt good," he said. "Overall, very blessed to be back. A lot of emotions leading up to this point. Wish I could have pitched a little bit better obviously, but (I'm) trying to look at the bigger picture.
"The first one back in a really long time, to walk away healthy, as opposed to being walked off last time -- very, very fortunate and happy to be back, so happy to be back. It was a long, 15, 16 months, whatever it was."
Springs is 0-0 with a 1.00 ERA in two career appearances (one start) against the Cardinals.
Rays first baseman Yandy Diaz (left wrist contusion) is questionable for the Tuesday game. He departed Tampa Bay's Sunday game early after getting hit by a hard liner from the Houston Astros' Yordan Alvarez in the sixth inning.
"I'm not too worried, just because I know it didn't hit me right on the wrist, but obviously it did hurt a little bit," Diaz said through interpreter Manny Navarro. "It was pretty hard to close my hand, so it hurt a lot. So I didn't try to put a glove on or grip a bat or anything."
--Field Level Media