St. Louis Cardinals: A look ahead to close out April

The final series of April has the St. Louis Cardinals facing the Cincinnati Reds at home once more.

Busch Stadium will once again play host to the Cincinnati Reds to close out the month and usher in May. The Cardinals will be seeking revenge for losing two-of-three when the Reds visited in the second series of the 2017 season. Will this series end more favorably than did the last?

Game one will take place on Friday night and is slated to have Tim Adleman climb the mound for the Reds. Adleman owns an 0-0 record on the season with an ERA of 2.70. Adleman has K’d twelve batters on the season. He last pitched against the Cubs and surrendered two homers but took a no-decision.

Adleman is penciled currently but could be replaced by the DL-returning Rookie Davis. Davis appeared in two games before going to the 10-day DL. In these starts he carried an 0-0 record with an ERA of 6.43. I would think the Cardinals would be pleased to face Davis save for the fact that they have never seen him before (something that doesn’t bode well for the Cardinals).

Should Adleman pitch game one, the Cardinals could look for a positive ending. In his last appearance against the Redbirds in 2016, Stephen Piscotty and Kolten Wong roughed up the pitcher with Piscotty going 2-4 and Wong blasting a  home run. Other Cardinals have mustered hits against him so they should look for this to continue.

The Cardinals haven’t yet announced a starter for game one but it can be assumed that Lance Lynn. Lynn last pitched on Saturday in Milwaukee and showed that he has returned this season from surgery with a vengeance.

On the season, Lynn owns a 2-1 record with an ERA of 2.70 and twenty strikeouts. Lynn last faced the Reds in 2015. Of the current Reds, Joey Votto (.333) and Eugenio Suarez (.250) hit Lynn well in 2015. That was two years ago and I look for Lynn to fare better this season in light of his recent performances.

Game two will take place on Saturday afternoon and will likely have Mike Leake facing Scott Feldman. Leake has been the MVP of the Cardinals pitching rotation thus far in the season carrying a 3-1 record and an impressive 1.32 ERA into this weekend.

Leake faced the Reds in the series earlier this season. This was the one loss he has suffered on the season. Frustratingly, he lasted eight innings, surrendered only six hits, and only one run but was undone by a pen that allowed a run of their own and an offense that was dead silent. His opponent on that night was Amir Garrett.

Leake’s opponent on Saturday is likely to Feldman who also fared extremely well when facing the Cardinals earlier this season. In that outing, Feldman lasted six innings and struck out six batters in the contest. Feldman was backed by an explosive Reds offense that plated eight runs while the Cardinals were again blanked.

All of this said, Feldman is very beatable and the Cardinals may have suffered his first outing since many had never seen him (the Kryptonite for the Cardinals). That said, Randal Grichuk, Carpenter, and Molina all own .500 batting averages against Feldman which should bode well in the second game facing him.

Felman might not be the game two starter. If Davis returns and pitches on Friday night, then Adleman could be bumped to Saturday and Feldman bumped to Sunday. This would be idea for the Cardinals as it would keep Garrett from pitching against us again.

Having said that, if Garrett does pitch, he will do so on Sunday– the concluding game. This should mean that Wacha will toe the mound for the Redbirds in the final game. Wacha did pitch against the Reds in the earlier series and took the win in that game. In that contest, Wacha lasted six innings, allowed only three hits, and allowed only one run.

If the finale match-up is Wacha-v-Garrett, I look for Wacha to gather another notch in his win column. Yes, Garrett is good but there is great talk about his being overused. Maybe he is and maybe this will start to show against the Cardinals on Sunday.

Garrett certainly wasn’t as sharp against the Brewers (his last start) as we he was against the Cardinals. In his last start, he lasted 3.1 innings and surrendered three home runs and nine total earned runs. Wouldn’t that be nice to see on Sunday?!

My final prediction for the Reds series is a series win but not a sweep. I think it is highly likely that a sweep could happen, I just don’t see it against the Reds, at least not yet.