The St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Red Sox will go head-to-head in a two-game set with both playing great baseball. The Cardinals are now back in the postseason conversation while the BoSox have built a sizeable lead in the AL East. Boston will serve as a great test as to whether the Cards have staying power in the race.
This series will be contested from Tuesday, August 15, 2017 through Wednesday, August 16, 2017 at Fenway Park in Boston.
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Pitching Matchups
The Cardinals will look to make a statement in this series with Mike Leake and Lance Lynn starting the games on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.
Leake is 7-10 with a 3.48 ERA and 1.282 WHIP in 23 starts. He’s allowed his share of hits, but has generally done well avoiding the free passes. In fact, he’s only allowed four walks over his last five starts.
He’s coming off a troublesome start against the Royals, allowing 11 hits in five innings. In that game, he gave up five runs.
Earlier this year, the Cards faced the Sox and went seven innings, allowing two runs in a loss on May 17.
Lance Lynn faced Boston in May and lasted six innings, giving up four runs—two earned. He gave up a pair of homers. He’s 10-6 with a 3.12 ERA.
Lynn and Leake are both reliable arms. Lynn looks back to his pre-Tommy John form. He hasn’t skipped a beat and is back to his low-3 ERA self.
Going against Leake and Lynn in this series will be Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez respectively.
Porcello is 6-14 with a 4.63 ERA this year and is a far cry from the AL Cy Young Award winner we saw last year.
He has done well avoiding walks, but has been hit hard. He allowed four runs in six innings against the Sox in May. He allowed nine hits and walked three in that game.
In his last three games, he allowed 11 runs in 18.1 innings of work. His last start, however, was a quality start, going six innings and giving up two runs against a powerful, but strikeout prone, Rays team.
Matching up with Lynn will be Eduardo Rodriguez. The young southpaw has stepped up for the BoSox, when healthy.
He’s 4-3 with a 3.80 ERA in 16 games and has already accumulated 1.5 rWAR in those games, striking out 96 in 87.2 innings. He has a 1.232 WHIP and 3.99 FIP.
E-Rod pitched brilliantly in April and May. Since then, things got a little off the hinges. His last two games have been great, giving up two runs and six hits in 12 innings. Before that, Rodriguez had four starts in a row that were subpar. In those four starts, he allowed 18 runs in 20.1 innings. He allowed seven homers in those four games. He’s allowed none in his last two starts and walked four as he’s exhibited much better command.
Offensive Comparison
There’s no team that’s scored more runs in the month of August than the Cardinals. St. Louis is hitting .288 as a team in the month with a .871 OPS.
The Cards haven’t seen a huge uptick in power. They’ve hit 16 homers in the month, but they’ve been pounding doubles, hitting well with runs on and getting on base at a .389 clip.
The Red Sox are another offense that hasn’t produced up to expectations on the season, but like the Cardinals, Boston’s offense has stepped up in August though the power remains moderate.
Paul DeJong, Dexter Fowler, Yadier Molina and Randal Grichuk are among a collection of Cardinals hitting on all cylinders. Fowler has been huge. He’s delivered regardless of spot in the order.
For Boston, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts are struggling, but Eduardo Nunez and Rafael Devers have been on fire since joining the Sox. They’ve added a key spark to this offense to help elevate it out of the bottom of the league and have both been instrumental in the Red Sox’s latest run of success.
Andrew Benintendi and Chris Young have both been great in the month of August, too, while Mitch Moreland has started to bounce back, too.
Bullpen Breakdown
The Sox added Addison Reed from the Mets to setup Craig Kimbrel.
Reed pitched well as the fill-in closer for New York. He’s struggling since being thrusted back into the playoff race. In six games in Boston, he’s pitched 4.1 innings and has allowed five homers, four hit—including two homers.
Joe Kelly’s success this season has started to wear off, too. While the Sox are still winning, and building their lead in the AL East, the bullpen is an area of concern in the middle innings.
For the Cardinals, the pen has been an area of concern throughout the season and a big reason for the extreme ups-and-downs during St. Louis’s season.
Lately, however, this unit has been consistent; and consistently good. Tyler Lyons, John Brebbia and Trevor Rosenthal are all pitching well. Seung-hwan Oh has pitched better since vacating the closer’s role.
Brett Cecil continues to be an issue, but he’s been moved to low-leverage innings by this point.
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