The (29-20) St. Louis Cardinals will take on the (19-29) San Diego Padres tonight. St. Louis is tied for best in the NL, while San Diego is 2nd worst in the NL. St. Louis has been playing great baseball on the road this season, with a record of 15-11 – which is the best road record of any team in the National league - , while San Diego has struggled all season at home with a record of 8-19 – which is the worst home record of any team in the National League. St. Louis has won six of their past eight games and 3-1 on this current road trip (including a 3-1 win over San Diego last night). San Diego has lost five of their last six home games, since the start of this current home stand, and have lost six of their last eight games overall. These teams are 2-2 versus each other this season San Diego winning the first two (one in extra innings) and St. Louis winning the most recent two.
St. Louis will start pitcher (6-1) Kyle McClellan, who will get his 9th start of the season; and his career. Prior to 2011, McClellan was used as a relief pitcher for STL sporting a 3.13 ERA, WHIP of 1.26 and BAA of .229 through 218 innings of work. He was upgraded to the starter role this season and has yet to disappoint as he currently leads the National League with wins with six; this will be first career “start” versus San Diego. Through nine starts in 2011, he has an ERA of 3.43, WHIP of 1.28 and BAA .253. He has lasted six+ innings in all of his starts, but one, and has allowed opponents 2 runs or less in six of his nine starts. However, in three of his past five starts he has given up 4/5 runs – but in his most recent start he allowed 5 hits, 0 walks and two runs in eight innings of work. He’s holding opposing left handed batters to a .160 average but is allowing righties to hit .307 against him this season. San Diego’s line-up is composed of five right handed batters and three lefties, with a bench full of righties. McClellan has struggled a bit on the road and at night, with a road ERA of 4.01/ WHIP of 1.50 and a night ERA of 3.79/WHIP of 1.46. He will be in a favorable spot tonight, however, pitching in a pitchers ballpark against one of the worst offensive teams in the MLB. Bottom line, he has been solid as a starter overall this season – but he is definitely hittable.
(5-2) Aaron Harang will make his tenth start of the season tonight for San Diego, game 250 and start 244 of his career. Prior to 2011 he played for seven and a half seasons in Cincinnati and one and a half in Oakland. As a Cincinnati starter, he made five opening day starts (but Cincinnati’s pitching has always been an issue – so that’s not saying all that much). 2005-2007 were his best years, but his pitching mechanics seemed to change in 2008 (as he went 16-6 in 2007 and 6-17 in 2008), he then struggled for two more years – last year he had an ERA of 5.32, WHIP of 1.59 and BAA of .309. He was traded last off season to San Diego, for three main reasons … 1) Because he grew up in San Diego, visited Padres games as a kid and went to San Diego State for college. 2) Because San Diego is well known as a pitchers ballpark. 3) Because San Diego has one of the best pitching coaches in the MLB, who told Harang prior to the deal that he noticed the difference in his pitching mechanics from 2002-2007 and 2008-2010. In the past few years Harang has put on weight, lost strength in his arm but did work fairly hard in the off-season with the pitching coach and was awarded his sixth opening day start in the MLB; in which he allowed 6 hits, 2 walks and just one run. He won his first four games of the season, allowing just 21 hits, 5 walks and 5 runs in 24 innings of work. Since then, he has returned to 2010 form with just one win in five starts allowing 35 hits, 12 walks and 21 runs in 30 innings of work. He has a season ERA of 4.31, WHIP of 1.34 and BAA of .265; allowing lefties to hit .278 and righties .256. Like I mentioned, his mechanics were changed to start the season but strength and confidence has been an in issue in his most recent starts. However, in his most recent start he had his best of the season – allowing 6 hits, 2 walks and 0 runs in eight innings of work at home to a Milwaukee team that was struggling on the road and will now face the hottest hitting team in the Major Leagues (who do very well on the road). He’ll have his work cut out for him tonight. He likes to attack the strike zone and doesn’t have all that much velocity on his off-speed pitches. I expect him to give up base runners against St. Louis who leads the league in hits as well as in walks, and allow some softies that St. Louis will hit for doubles and a couple out of the park; Harang has given up seven homeruns in his last five starts.
St. Louis has the #1 offense in the MLB, averaging 5.02 runs per game, as well as leading in the following categories: Hits (469), Doubles (98), Walks (194), Total Bases (708), RBI (236), Batting Average (.282), OBP (.361), OPS (.786). San Diego has the 29th best offense (out of 30) with a Batting average of .231 (29th), Runs per game of 3.46 (30th) and are in the bottom three in almost every other statistical category. St. Louis also has the fourth fewest strikeouts, while San Diego has the most strikeouts (averaging 8 per game). San Diego has had a batting average under .195 in all five of their past five games, while St. Louis has had a batting average of .195 or higher in all of five of their past five games. San Diego has one of the lowest payrolls in the MLB and lost their best offensive player, Adrian Gonzalez – to Boston this past offseason. It is fair to say that six St. Louis hitters are better than San Diego’s best hitter (seven if you included the injured Holliday). St. Louis is hitting even better on the road, .290 and against right handed pitchers they are hitting .304 on the road. San Diego is hitting .199 at home and .197 at home versus righties.
St. Louis bullpen ERA is pretty solid at 3.34, despite a WHIP of 1.42. However, in their past 20 innings of work STL bullpen has an ERA of 7.58 and WHIP of 1.89. San Diego’s bullpen is the best part of their team with an ERA of 2.37 and WHIP of 1.07. In their last 20 innings of work they have an ERA of 3.84 and WHIP of 1.18.
PittVipers Final Prediction:
I see St. Louis making life for Harang very difficult tonight. I know the San Diego struggles to score, and at home, I know that San Diego is a pitchers ball park – but Harang is a type of pitcher that these St. Louis batters dream about. Not much movement on his off-speed pitches, his control has been a bit erratic as of late and he’s looked fairly predictable. There are too many big bats in this lineup not to score 4-6 runs off of him. St. Louis may struggle versus San Diego’s bullpen, but the later innings is when I expect San Diego’s offense to make things a little interesting. I predict after five innings the score will be, St. Louis 4 – San Diego 1... After nine I expect the score to be around St. Louis 5 – San Diego 3.
St. Louis 5 – San Diego 3
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