St. Louis Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates Series Preview

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With only a small portion of the season left, the St. Louis Cardinals are heading into what is arguably their biggest series of the year to date. With only a 5 game lead on the Pittsburgh Pirates, this could either extend the Cardinals lead substantially, or it could flip right into the Pirates favor. There are a lot of thing that will factor into this series and I’m going to give you a preview of what to look forward to.

Cardinals:

The backbone of the Cardinals this season and don’t expect anything to change this series. The Cardinals are scheduled to have Carlos Martinez, Michael Wacha, and Lance Lynn start the games this series and that is nothing short of tough. You could argue that those three have been the Cardinals best pitchers this year and they are going to have to come up big and pitch well for the Cardinals to win this series. The Cardinals have been averaging nearly 4 runs a game since the all star break and when you can have pitchers throwing gems night in and night out, you’ll have a chance to win every game.

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Also, another thing to look forward to is the streaking Matt Carpenter. During the month of August, Carpenter has a .290/.353/.774, which results in a 1.127 OPS. You can see from watching that when Carpenter is hitting well and getting on base he can ignite the offense.

Pirates:

The Pirates are coming into Busch Stadium surging after just coming off a sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers and they are going to be looking to sweep the Cardinals to narrow the division lead to 2 games. The Pirates are scheduled to have Jeff Locke, Gerrit Cole, and Francisco Liriano. The Pirates are in almost every game when Cole and Liriano pitch, so those games might end up being pitcher duels for both teams. Cole is having a Cy Young type year and he’s only getting better as time goes along, so prepare for a rubber match on Tuesday.

Pittsburgh is going to be ready to go tonight and don’t be surprised if they try setting the tone for the whole series. The Pirates might be more aggressive at the plate, aggressive on the base paths and try to manufacture a lot of runs. The Pirates know how important this series is and they’re going to try whatever it takes to win.

Recap:

This series is going to be a fun one to watch and will have eyes from all over the baseball world watching. These are arguably the two best teams in the National League going head to head in a race for a division crown. For a series in August, you can’t beat this. Expect a lot of drama, excitement, and most of all, a great three game series.

Next: Cardinals will have questions heading into 2016

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