St. Louis Cardinals: Get ready for an important road trip

The St. Louis Cardinals have an exciting set of games coming up. Let’s take a quick preview of the coming week.

The St. Louis Cardinals have just wrapped up a very difficult seventeen-game stretch with no days off. As it stands, they are well over .500, leading the NL Central, and sitting towards the top of the entire National League. The offense is showing some potency and the pitching has been lights out. After surviving this long run of games, however, an even tougher test presents itself next week.

First, the Cards travel to Milwaukee to take on the Brewers. A three-game series starting Tuesday, both teams will have the chance to separate themselves from the Reds and Cubs. In fact, the Cardinals and Brewers don’t play again until August, so this week will be an important one to remember in the division race.

So how are the Brewers playing? Well, they have the top of their rotation lined up with Brandon Woodruff set to take the mound, but their other ace Corbin Burnes and all-star Christian Yelich remain out with injuries. On offense, the highly touted Brew Crew lineup has really struggled to score runs. In fact, their six-game losing streak is the longest they’ve had in three years. 

Excluding one key loss, the Cardinals look to be getting stronger. Yadier Molina has rejoined the team. The Cardinals could welcome John Nogowski back as a right-handed power hitter off the bench, and Andrew Miller is working his way back, too. Either way, the Cardinals are playing good baseball at the right time as they head into this important three-game series.

Immediately following the Brewers is a trip out to San Diego to face the league-leading Padres. We don’t need to revisit the last game the Cardinals played at Petco Park– it’s only been immortalized as the cover of MLB: The Show ‘21. This is a good chance for revenge against Fernando Tatis Jr. and a very exciting team picked by many to be one of the best in baseball.

It’s unlikely that the Cards face all three, but between Yu Darvish, Blake Snell, and Joe Musgrove, the Padres boast quite the rotation. Along with one of the deepest lineups in baseball, the Padres provide a challenge to opponents in all aspects of the game. This will be a great test of how the Cardinals measure up against the big dogs.

Game two of this series is the featured Sunday Night Baseball game, giving the Cardinals a national audience to impress for the first time this season. Winning the game is the priority, but I won’t complain if the Dylan Carlson rookie of the year campaign takes off as a result.

After these six games, the Pirates come back in town to provide a quick break. It might only be May, but there is no understating the importance of the next week of Cardinal baseball. You have to beat the best to be the best, and this week should show how the Cardinals stack up.

Games one and two against the Brewers start at 6:40 central, with game three broadcast on Youtube starting at 12:40 . Luckily, the start times in San Diego aren’t too late– 9:10 central for game one, 7:40 (on the ESPN national broadcast) for game two, and 6:10 for game three. I’ll put in print now that we go 4-2 over this stretch, as momentum continues to build for this talented St. Louis Cardinals ballclub.