The Opening Day win over the Cubs aside, it was a bit of a bumpy first week for the St. Louis Cardinals who need to bounce back after missing the playoffs last year for the first time since 2010. The Cards will get a chance to turn their season around in a three game series against the Washington Nationals beginning on Monday. Washington has started the year 3-3 and will hopefully get back their star shortstop Trea Turner who is currently day-to-day with a leg injury.
This series will be contested from Monday, April 10, 2017 through Wednesday, April 12, 2017 at Nationals Park in Washington, DC. Tuesday's clash is being shown live on ESPN.
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Pitching Matchups
Former ace Adam Wainwright will get his second start of the season on Monday against the oft-underrated right-hander for the Nationals: Tanner Roark.
Wainwright pitched to some bad luck in his first start, giving up a few soft hits that led to a couple of runs against the Cubs. The veteran righties’ change up worked pretty well in the outing though which should be an overall positive for the Cardinals who will need Wainwright to pitch like a solid top of the rotation arm behind Carlos Martinez if they’re going to taste the postseason this year.
Waino hasn’t been the same pitcher since he missed nearly the entire 2015 season, but he’s found a good deal of success against Washington in his career, going 8-3 against the Nats with a 2.99 ERA and 1.156 WHIP in 14 games.
On the other side, Roark is fresh off a season with a 16-10 record and 2.83 ERA in 210 innings. When given the chance to start in his career, he’s been very, very good.
In his career against the Cards, he’s pitched in three games—just one start—and lasted just seven total innings, allowing 10 hits and four runs.
The second game of this series will pin Lance Lynn against Gio Gonzalez. Lynn has a good, consistent pitcher for the Cardinals before missing all of last season. He’s got a career winning percentage of .610 and a career ERA of 3.37. He looked to pick up right where he left off in his first start of 2017. He didn’t get the win, but he allowed just two runs in five and a third.
As for Gio, he was remarkable in his first season in Washington, but has seen his ERA go up every season since and was just 11-11 and with 4.57 ERA last year. The lefty had a good first outing this year, going six scoreless, but the overall trends are still not going in the right direction for him.
These two teams wrap up their three game series on Wednesday with a game clearly in the Nationals’ favor based on the pitching matchup with last year’s Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer matched up against Mike Leake.
Leake’s been a serviceable pitcher during his career, but is coming off his worst season of his career and a hard luck lose in his 2017 debut. He pitched well enough to win, allowing one run in eight innings. He may need to replicate that to have a chance on Wednesday which is not very likely.
Scherzer has adapted his grip due to a finger injury, but that didn’t slow him down in his debut, allowing two runs in six and two-thirds innings. The veteran righty is arguably the best pitcher in baseball right now not named Clayton Kershaw. He’s lead his respective league in wins three of the last four seasons and last year had a 2.96 ERA and league leading 0.968 WHIP.
Who's Hot?
For the Nationals, Daniel Murphy has picked up right where he left off last season after finishing second in the MVP voting.
The Washington second baseman hit .347 last year with a NL leading .985 OPS thanks to 47 doubles and 25 home runs. He’s already leading the league in hits going into Sunday and is hitting .480 with three doubles, a home run and four RBIs.
The Nats have also gotten a very strong start from new catcher Matt Wieters and first baseman Ryan Zimmerman.
Zimmerman struggled through 2016 and many thought his days as a productive major leaguer were over, but he’s look invigorated in 2017, hitting .333 with a team leading three home runs through the season’s first week, giving the team a good right-handed bat to break up the lefties in the heart of the order. If Zimmerman continues to produce, that makes this lineup so much deeper as Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth have also already slammed a pair of long balls.
For the Cardinals the hottest hitters have been Aledmys Diaz and Yadier Molina. The former is providing the pop while the later is just being his typical productive hitter with a .391 OBP.
Who's Not?
A number of key Cardinal bats have started the season off ice cold, including Dexter Fowler and Matt Carpenter.
Fowler atop the order allowed Carpenter to move down into a more run producing role, but neither are hitting well in their respective positions here in the early going. For Fowler, he’s gotten just four hits in his 23 at bats. He has scored three runs, but he’s done little to jump start this offense from the top.
As for Carpenter, he’s just 3-for-20. He has drawn four walks, but he’s only driven in one run.
The new gets worse for St. Louis who have also gotten a slow start from closer Seung Hwan Oh who has allowed four runs in 2.2 innings in his first two games. Brett Cecil, Jonathan Broxton and even Kevin Siegrist haven’t looked all that sharp out of the Cardinals’ bullpen either.
Of course, for the Nats, Blake Treinen and Shawn Kelley have both already blown a save while Trea Turner was hitting just .158 before his leg injury.
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