The St. Louis Cardinals will play the Pittsburgh Pirates in Game 2 of their series at PNC Park on Tuesday night.
The St. Louis Cardinals are 92-68 this season and have lost five of their last eight games. St. Louis lost Game 1 of this series by a score of 3-2 on Monday night. The St. Louis pitching staff has a 3.76 ERA, a 1.26 WHIP, and a .246 opponent batting average this season. The Cardinals offense has scored 761 runs with a .252 batting average and a .326 on base percentage. Paul Goldschmidt is batting .319 with 35 home runs and 114 RBI’s for the Cardinals this season. The projected starter for St. Louis is Dakota Hudson, who is 8-7 with a 4.07 ERA and a 1.39 WHIP over 137 innings pitched this season.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are 61-99 this season and have won five of their last seven games. Prior to winning Game 1 of this series, Pittsburgh lost two out of three games played against St. Louis at Busch Stadium. The Pittsburgh pitching staff has a 4.67 ERA, a 1.42 WHIP, and a .259 opponent batting average. The Pirates offense has scored 579 runs with a .221 batting average and a .289 on base percentage this year. Bryan Reynolds is batting .260 with 27 home runs and 62 RBI’s for the Pirates this season. The projected starter for Pittsburgh is JT Brubaker, who is 3-12 with a 4.58 ERA and a 1.46 WHIP over 141.1 innings pitched this season.
The Cardinals have had the NL Central locked up for a while and they are coasting towards the postseason. Pittsburgh is trying to avoid their 100th loss and they have the third worst record in the NL. Pittsburgh is tentatively projected to start JT Brubaker, who has allowed 10 earned runs over his last 14.1 innings pitched. For the Cardinals, Dakota Hudson has allowed five runs over his last 15.2 innings pitched. St. Louis has the better team and the pitching advantage in this game. I like the Cardinals to win this game by at least two runs behind a good offensive effort.
AUTHOR: David Racey
Mitch's Take...
