Intro<\/p>\n
The 34-28 Cardinals are in the middle of a 9-game homestand that will be telling not only for its competitive significance but for the crowds it draws (or doesn\u2019t). <\/p>\n
The 38-25 Dodgers arrive in from Los Angeles having played for a week at home against the teams from Gotham (Mets, Yankees). We welcome old friend Tommy Edman home. <\/p>\n
The Pitching Matchups (projected) <\/p>\n
Friday – Yashinobu Yamamoto vs. Sonny Gray @ 7:05p (all times Central)<\/p>\n
Saturday – Dustin May vs Erik Fedde @ 3:05p<\/p>\n
Sunday – Clayton Kershaw vs Michael McGreevy @ 12:05p<\/p>\n
Quick peek at the pitching\/run prevention<\/p>\n
Who exactly is in the Dodger rotation? They have started an amazing 13 pitchers already. They have an entire rotation on the IL. It looks like they shortened their quasi-six-man rotation to get two lefties in this weekend. <\/p>\n
On Friday, 26-year-old lefty Yamamoto gets the call. He is really good. Perhaps the Cardinals can continue to have their way with really good pitchers. He does carry a 30% K rate and an 8% walk rate, FIP (2.74) thinks he is over-performing his 1.97 ERA. Swell. <\/p>\n
On Saturday, the Dodgers will feature 27-year-old righty Dustin May. He carries a 24.8% K rate and an 8.5% walk rate. His FIP of 3.92 is a little better than the ERA of 4.20. He\u2019ll give up a homer or two also. He has a decent 50.7% GB rate. <\/p>\n
On Sunday, the Dodgers will present ageless veteran Clayton Kershaw, as the Cardinals continue to see a seemingly endless run of LHP. Message received. Kershaw is in his 18th season, having debuted in 2008. He is just getting started this year. In his 4 games, his ERA and FIP are over 5 and his K rate is actually lower than his walk rate. <\/p>\n
Casparius, Dreyer and Scott form a pretty powerful trifecta out of the bullpen, each with a K-rate north of 28%. High octane. Kinda like the Mets, maybe better. <\/p>\n
They rank smack dab average on defense at -.2 OAA, 16th in the MLB. Their outfield defense is pretty rough. Infield is good, except Muncy at third who is -5 OAA already in 2025.<\/p>\n
Overall, their run prevention is pretty average, a little worse than the Cardinals by about .3 runs per game. <\/p>\n
A peak at the offense<\/p>\n
The Dodgers offense has lapped the field in runs scored. That have 9 above average hitters by wRC+, led by Freeman (187), Ohtani (187), Smith (177), Hernandez (146). They can hit. Pure and simple. They can outscore even Kershaw\u2019s troubles. <\/p>\n
Overall<\/p>\n
This is a slugging team, with good (not great) pitching and average defense. A good combination. The pitching the Cardinals see this series may not be representative of what they might see in a potential October face off. <\/p>\n
Cardinal updates<\/p>\n
The Cardinals are coming off the Royals series at home where they had trouble containing a well-below-par offense. This weekend could get ugly. <\/p>\n
Jordan Walker will not come off the IL on Sunday. <\/p>\n
Has Oli made clear enough his intention on using (not) Jose Barrero? His spot is turning into a wasted roster spot. <\/p>\n
The minor league roster re-alignment is in full swing. <\/p>\n
Kaminsky released. Matzek signed. Church promoted to AAA. Baez promoted to AA. Rodriguez promoted to A- (at 18 years old!). Paige promoted to AA. Kross promoted to High-A. In a shocking development, Honeyman moved to the IL. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Intro The 34-28 Cardinals are in the middle of a 9-game homestand that will be telling not only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[290,5,2015,160,39,2014,181,11220,1165,4332,4333,289,774,57,3224,4331,288,4,3227,1646,7611,287,417,2013],"class_list":{"0":"post-83873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-angeles","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-birdos","11":"tag-cardinals","12":"tag-dodgers","13":"tag-el","14":"tag-front-page","15":"tag-june","16":"tag-la","17":"tag-la-dodgers","18":"tag-ladodgers","19":"tag-los","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-losangelesdodgers","24":"tag-louis","25":"tag-mlb","26":"tag-preview","27":"tag-series","28":"tag-st-louis-cardinals-previews","29":"tag-st","30":"tag-to","31":"tag-viva"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114637052926384257","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83873","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=83873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}