{"id":677485,"date":"2026-04-17T08:48:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677485\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T08:48:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:48:31","slug":"astros-host-the-cardinals-to-begin-3-game-series-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677485\/","title":{"rendered":"Astros host the Cardinals to begin 3-game series"},"content":{"rendered":"

St. Louis Cardinals<\/a> (10-8, fourth in the NL Central) vs. Houston Astros<\/a> (8-12, fourth in the AL West)<\/p>\n

Houston; Friday, 8:10 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n

PITCHING PROBABLES: Cardinals: Kyle Leahy<\/a> (1-2, 5.14 ERA, 1.71 WHIP, seven strikeouts); Astros: Peter Lambert<\/a> (0-0)<\/p>\n

LINE: Astros -139, Cardinals +117; over\/under is 8 1\/2 runs<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: The Houston Astros open a three-game series at home against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.<\/p>\n

Houston has an 8-12 record overall and a 7-3 record at home. The Astros have hit 21 total home runs to rank fifth in the AL.<\/p>\n

St. Louis has a 3-3 record on the road and a 10-8 record overall. The Cardinals are fifth in the NL with 20 total home runs, averaging 1.1 per game.<\/p>\n

Friday’s game is the first meeting between these teams this season.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Yordan Alvarez<\/a> has a .328 batting average to lead the Astros, and has six doubles and seven home runs. Jose Altuve<\/a> is 12 for 42 with two RBIs over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n

Alec Burleson<\/a> has three doubles, two home runs and 14 RBIs while hitting .279 for the Cardinals. Jordan Walker<\/a> is 14 for 42 with a double and six home runs over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Astros: 2-8, .245 batting average, 6.61 ERA, outscored by 25 runs<\/p>\n

Cardinals: 6-4, .239 batting average, 4.75 ERA, outscored by nine runs<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Astros: Cody Bolton: 15-Day IL (back), Jeremy Pena<\/a>: 10-Day IL (knee), Tatsuya Imai: 15-Day IL (arm), Jake Meyers<\/a>: 10-Day IL (oblique), Ronel Blanco<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow), Cristian Javier: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Hunter Brown: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Hayden Wesneski<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow), Brandon Walter<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow), Nate Pearson: 15-Day IL (elbow), Zach Dezenzo: 10-Day IL (elbow), Bennett Sousa<\/a>: 15-Day IL (oblique), Josh Hader<\/a>: 15-Day IL (biceps)<\/p>\n

Cardinals: Matt Pushard: 15-Day IL (knee), Hunter Dobbins: 15-Day IL (knee), Lars Nootbaar: 60-Day IL (heels)<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Louis Cardinals (10-8, fourth in the NL Central) vs. Houston Astros (8-12, fourth in the AL West)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2389],"tags":[42,5,3616,13576,75686,1432,139,54,3211,452,5828,817,1109,19,4,10195,766,2264],"class_list":{"0":"post-677485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-astros","8":"tag-astros","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-bennett-sousa","11":"tag-brandon-walter","12":"tag-event_preview","13":"tag-hayden-wesneski","14":"tag-houston","15":"tag-houston-astros","16":"tag-houstonastros","17":"tag-jake-meyers","18":"tag-jeremy-pena","19":"tag-jose-altuve","20":"tag-josh-hader","21":"tag-major-league-baseball","22":"tag-mlb","23":"tag-peter-lambert","24":"tag-ronel-blanco","25":"tag-yordan-alvarez"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116419186147100204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}