St. Louis Cardinals (30-21, 1st in the NL Central)
2010 Record vs. Colorado: 4-3
Last Series vs. Rockies: September 30-October 3, 2010 (W 4-0 at Busch Stadium)
After the Rockies swept St. Louis at Coors Field in July in a series that featured two unbelievable comeback victories, the Cards returned the favor by beating the listless Rockies 16-2 over the course of four games. Nobody on either team was particular good at hitting the ball, as current Rockies farmhand Matt Pagnozzi and former Rockie Matt Holliday were the series leaders in hits with five apiece for the Cardinals, whereas Dexter Fowler was basically the only Rockies position player that showed up to play. In fact, there were no home runs in the series and the Cardinals only had four extra base hits, compared to the Rockies' five.
St. Louis starters Chris Carpenter, Jake Westbrook, Kyle Lohse, and Jeff Suppan combined to pitch 29.2 innings of one run ball, allowing 16 hits and eight walks while striking out 23.
Latest Series Results: W 2-1 at Kansas City, W 2-1 at San Diego
Even without star slugger Holliday (who has been on the shelf with a quad injury), the Cardinals have taken their past two series with relative ease. Lance Berkman hasn't been healthy the whole time either, but he has continued his torrid pace while in the lineup, with a 1.014 OPS over his last couple of series. Berkman is easily the frontrunner for the NL MVP at this point, and I'm sure the Rockies are kicking themselves - at least right now - for not ponying up the dough to bring him to Denver (for what it's worth, I still don't blame them, even in retrospect).
Meanwhile, Albert Pujols has continued to struggle, as his OPS for the season is still south of .800. Even worse, he OPS'd just .625 for the series against the Royals and Padres. The Cards have received great contributions this year from role players such as Jon Jay (.884 OPS) and Allen Craig (.860 OPS).
Their pitching, as usual, has been lights out in 2011. The bullpen, outside of Ryan Franklin, has been above-average to exceptional, while most of their starters - i.e. Jaime Garcia (190 ERA+), Kyle Lohse (178 ERA+), and Kyle McClellan (118 ERA+) - have been good as well. The Cards should be thankful for that, as Adam Wainwright is out for the season with Tommy John surgery and Chris Carpenter (80 ERA+) has been underwhelming.
Pitching matchups and more after the jump.
Friday through Sunday: 3-game series at Coors Field
Expected Pitching Matchups
Friday, May 27, 2011 @ 6:40 PM MT
Saturday, May 28, 2011 @ 5:10 PM MT on FOX
* at Double-A Tulsa
Sunday, May 29, 2011 @ 1:10 PM MT
Expected Lineup
| Player | Pos | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ |
HR | RBI |
| Jon Jay | RF | .333 | .406 | .478 | .389 | 148 | 3 | 11 |
| Allen Craig | 2B | .303 | .386 | .474 | .392 | 150 | 3 | 14 |
| Albert Pujols | 1B | .261 | .330 | .407 | .331 | 109 | 8 | 26 |
| Lance Berkman | LF | .350 | .463 | .650 | .458 | 195 | 11 | 37 |
| Colby Rasmus | CF | .273 | .377 | .415 | .357 | 127 | 3 | 16 |
| Yadier Molina | C | .318 | .364 | .470 | .354 | 125 | 3 | 21 |
| Daniel Descalso | 3B | .242 | .311 | .367 | .291 | 81 | 1 | 17 |
| Tyler Greene | SS | .300 | .285 | .286 | .299 | 88 | 1 | 6 |
*Matt Holliday may or may not play tonight. For now, he's on the bench.
Bench
| Player | Pos | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ |
HR | RBI |
| Tony Cruz | C | .600 | .600 | .800 | .614 | 301 | 0 | 0 |
| Pete Kozma | IF | .167 | .375 | .333 | .334 | 111 | 0 | 1 |
| Skip Schumaker | Util | .222 | .290 | .349 | .281 | 75 | 1 | 8 |
| Ryan Theriot | IF | .294 | .344 | .329 | .311 | 96 | 0 | 18 |
| Matt Holliday | OF | .349 | .439 | .557 | .433 | 178 | 6 | 31 |
Closer (by Committee)
Injuries
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