{"id":687802,"date":"2026-05-01T20:03:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/687802\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T20:03:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:03:40","slug":"dodgers-head-into-st-louis-for-a-three-game-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/687802\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers head into St. Louis for a three-game set"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy May, Dodger fans! The Dodgers<\/a> begin the most beautiful of months in first place, but just a half game ahead of the San Diego Padres<\/a>. They also begin it in St. Louis<\/a> at the start of a six-game road trip that includes a series in Houston<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At 18-13, St Louis is third in the NL East, behind both the Cincinnati Reds<\/a> and Chicago Cubs<\/a>. They are coming off a four-game sweep of the Pirates in Pittsburgh<\/a> after having been swept by Seattle<\/a> at home.<\/p>\n

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Friday\u2019s game will feature the pitching matchup of Matthew Liberatore<\/a> and Emmet Sheehan<\/a>. Liberatore is 0-1 with a 6.28 ERA in the six games in which he\u2019s appeared. He is coming off his worst outing of the season, in which he lasted only 3.1 innings allowing five earned runs.<\/p>\n

Sheehan is coming off one of his best appearances of the year, an outing against the Cubs in which he went 6.1 innings with just one earned run, striking out 10 while only allowing one walk.<\/p>\n

Facing Liberatore could possibly help Freddie Freeman<\/a> break out of his slump. Lifetime Freeman is batting .800 against Liberatore with a 1.633 OPS. Shohei Ohtani<\/a> also has a homer against him.<\/p>\n

One thing to watch for is the Cardinals<\/a> bullpen usage. Seven of their bullpen arms have been used heavily in the last three games, with six having thrown 30 or more pitches in the last three games, and five having thrown 15 or more yesterday. The bullpen staff as a whole has a 5.15 ERA, fifth worse in all of baseball, and they own the fourth-worst K\/BB rate.<\/p>\n

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Cardinals baseball this season has been a bit of a roller coaster ride. They have 10 comeback wins, three of which were walk-offs. They are prone to having big leads and losing it because of the aforementioned bullpen, or they are clawing their way back into games. The Red Birds are 6-2 in one run games, and 5-0 in extra innings.<\/p>\n

The team is hoping their first day off after 13 straight games will help their struggling offense. They limped through the end of the series against the Miami Marlins<\/a>, scoring a measly three runs in the last two games. Facing a beleaguered bullpen could be just what the doctor ordered for the offense to be their super powered selves again.<\/p>\n

FRIDAY GAME INFO<\/p>\n

Teams: Dodgers at Cardinals<\/p>\n

Radio: AM 570 (English), KTNQ 1020 AM (Spanish)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Happy May, Dodger fans! The Dodgers begin the most beautiful of months in first place, but just a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,160,24,50,39,7907,815,139,1453,58,4,776,18,619,468,673],"class_list":{"0":"post-687802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-cincinnati-reds","12":"tag-dodgers","13":"tag-emmet-sheehan","14":"tag-freddie-freeman","15":"tag-houston","16":"tag-matthew-liberatore","17":"tag-miami-marlins","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-pittsburgh","20":"tag-san-diego-padres","21":"tag-seattle","22":"tag-shohei-ohtani","23":"tag-st-louis"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116501112682343405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687802","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=687802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}