St. Louis Cardinals taking aim at struggling Cleveland Indians

The St. Louis Cardinals prepare for Interleague play. Coming off of their first series loss of the season at the hands of the Pittsburgh Pirates following a 4-3 loss, the St. Louis Cardinals are in Cleveland to begin an interleague series tomorrow with the Cleveland Indians.

Despite losing the series yesterday, the St. Louis Cardinals maintain a 6.5 game cushion in the NL central. During yesterday’s outing, Tyler Lyons went 5 innings, striking out 5, walking 1 and giving up 3 runs (2 earned) with 5 hits allowed.

Lyons was solid, yet continued a recent trend of St. Louis Cardinals starters not pitching deep into games. As a matter of fact, outside of John Lackey‘s recent start at home against the Chicago Cubs last week, the staff has had to rely upon its bullpen more often that not.

Doing so this early in the season creates a potential problem down the road, so hopefully the starters will find a way to adjust, adapt and extend themselves to not totally wipe out the bullpen before the season concludes.

Yes, the St. Louis Cardinals lost two close games in Pittsburgh, but with a few breaks going their way, they could have swept yet another series against the Pirates.

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Lance Lynn, a man many feel is capable of being a top starter on practically any team in MLB, has not had a great start to the season. At the moment he has a 1-3 record with a 3.82 era in 6 starts.

To the defense of the St. Louis Cardinals hurler, he has 42 K’s in 35 1/3 innings and despite giving up 5 runs or more in 2 of his last 3 starts, he has only given up 1 earned in his other 4 starts.

Lynn will look to go deeper tomorrow against the Indians, being opposed by Carlos Carrasco who has a 4-2 record along with a 4.71 era.

A welcomed sign from the ball club the past couple of weeks has been the timely hitting from the offense including Kolten Wong, Jhonny Peralta, Jason Heyward and Matt Holliday.

During the beginning part of their current road trip, the St. Louis Cardinals have had to compensate without MVP candidate Matt Carpenter.

It was reported late last week that Carpenter would remain in St. Louis to rest from “fatigue” but is expected to return to the club in time for the St. Louis Cardinals series against the Indians, beginning tomorrow.

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Back to Kolten Wong for a second, he has been on an absolute tear the past week or two, especially during the two series thus far against the Pittsburgh Pirates. During this past weekend’s series he hit 2 HR, drove in 5 RBI, and went 5 for 12 at the plate.

Mother’s Day, Kolten Wong used a pink bat to honor his mother who passed away in December of 2013 and hit a home run off of Pirates starter Jeff Locke to momentarily tie the game.

Kolten Wong told mlb.com after the game,

"“I wanted to go with something that represented the Mother’s Day theme, so I decided for the pink bat,” Wong said. “I told myself that this day is for my mom. No matter what I do, I’m going to have fun, play the game and just enjoy it.”"

Wong is doing everything the St. Louis Cardinals anticipated he would do upon arriving at this level, and I suspect that he will continue to ascend and make the proper adjustments at the plate and in the field.

As for Matt Carpenter, his bat and glove for that matter, will be a welcomed addition to the lineup considering the struggles at times from his replacements Pete Kozma and Mark Reynolds.

Again, during the St. Louis Cardinals current road trip, they need to get solid pitching from their starters and for them to go deeper into games especially considering they will be facing the AL.

This is a time where we will find out just how good the ball club really is at this stage of the season. Thanks for reading!

Next: Carlos Villanueva a major piece of Cards' bullpen