The now 61-61 Cardinals are mired in the muck. Unable to generate momentum beyond a few days, the gravitational pull of .500 continually pulls them back. Each orbit is elliptical, so with each win a ray of hope bursts forth that this will allow them to escape the surly claws of mediocrity. However, angular momentum is a thing and until they find a new force to change their trajectory, here they circle.

The 64-57 Yankees look (by record) to be slightly better than the Cardinals. Don’t let that record fool you. They are more than 100 runs better than the Cardinals, having the advantage both offensively (runs scored) and defensively (runs allowed). The Yankees currently sit in the last wild card spot inexplicably 1 game ahead of … drum roll … the Cleveland Guardians of all teams. We left them for dead weeks ago, right? Ya never know…

The Pitching Matchups (projected)

Friday – Luis Gil vs Pallante @ 7:15p (all times Central)

Saturday – Fried vs Gray @ 6:15p

Sunday – Will Warren vs Mikolas @ 1:15p

Quick peek at the pitching/run prevention

On Friday, we should see 27-year-old right Luis Gil. He has been out and this is only his third game back. He is a high K, high BB style pitcher. With all of 8.2 IP under his belt this year, I can’t read anything into his stats other than he is basically just coming out of Spring Training.

On Saturday, now 31-year-old left-hander Max Fried takes the mound. He carries a 2.97 ERA and a 3.14 FIP. The fact that is he left-handed may tell us how to handicap this game. That he is perhaps the best lefty in the business nudges the odds further the wrong way.

On Sunday, we should see 26-year-old righty Will Warren. He carries a 4.34 ERA/3.68 FIP. He has a relatively good 26.3% K rate, and a kinda high 10.2% walk rate. The tipping point on K-BB seems to be about 15, and he beats that.

It appears from the stats that the Yanks Achilles’ heel is their bullpen. The Cardinals somewhat mercurial and ever evolving bullpen has accumulated a tidy 4.1 fWAR so far. Which, by the way, is 7th in the MLB. Comparatively, the Yankees sit at 1.7 fWAR from their cast of relievers. Not good. Bottom third.

Even with Nolan Gorman’s recent throwing problems adding a -4 OAA, the Cardinals continue to run away with the OAA stat race with +39, well ahead of an improving Milwaukee team. The Yankees by comparison have a team OAA of -7. 20th in baseball. The defense and bullpen combo must make late innings treacherous for them.

Now for the bad news. The Yankees are every bit as good as the Dodgers offensively. Their stats across the board are nearly identical, with a slight edge to the Yankees in SLG.

Paul Goldschmidt has come off his early season hit-fest and now sits at 108 wRC+ w/ 1 fWAR. As a side note, back in April a VEB poster challenged me pretty hard when I suggested we should not draw too many conclusions about Goldy’s early performance and offered him the opportunity to check in with me about it in mid-August. Timing is everything, huh? If trends hold, he will end up right about where he was when we last saw him in a Cardinal uniform. But being a league average hitter at 37 years old is nothing to sneeze at. Half the guys in the league (most younger) would take his stat line.

Goldy is like their 8th best hitter, which gives you an idea of depth of their line-up. You all know about Stanton and Judge and Bellinger. But Ben Rice (118 wRC+) and Trent Grisham (126 wRC+)? They do seem kind of right-leaning, so wouldn’t expect to see much of Romero this weekend.

In a nutshell, they bludgeon teams to death.

Expect this weekend to be warm or even very hot, with high humidity. Hot enough to be pretty tough on pitchers (and catchers).

The Cardinals are coming off another poor series against an under-manned Colorado team.

Nolan Arenado reported to Jupiter to begin trying to strengthen his shoulder and get a plan for returning to action. I’m beginning to wonder if he is going to be the Sep 1 call-up on the positional side.