The St Louis Cardinals will take on the Chicago Cubs for Game 2 of this series Saturday afternoon in St. Louis. The Cardinals have been playing arguably their best baseball over the last 7 games, winning 6 while only losing 1. The Cardinals bats have really come alive, as they have scored 46 runs in their last 7 games, almost averaging 7 runs per game. Their pitching has been stellar as well, only giving up 20 runs in those 7 games. The Cubs come into this game losing 8 of their last 10 games overall, as they seem to have all but given up on this year. They lost game 1 in this series after jumping out to a quick 2 run lead, only to give that lead up and the game by a score of 6-3. For game 2, the Cardinals are currently set as -250 ML favorites, while being -115 RL favorites, with the game runs total being set at 7.5 runs.
Chris Carpenter gets the start for the Cardinals in this game, who has pitched great this year as expected. His season ERA stands at 2.90 with a WHIP of only 1.16 on the year. He has been even better of late, pitching to a 1.61 ERA in his last 3 starts, with a WHIP of 1.03. Carpenter always pitches well when the Cards need it, and I think he is gearing up for another playoff run by pitching the Cards into the playoffs. On the other side, Carlos Zambrano will be pitching for the Cubs on Saturday, who has been nothing short of a disaster this year. His ERA stands at 5.85 but that does not tell the whole story for his season. He has been through the toughest season of his career this year by being demoted the bullpen at one point and even getting suspended for one of his patented outbursts in his dugout. He blatantly embarrassed his teammates during a game he was pitching, belittling them in the dugout for not "diving for balls they could have gotten to". What Zambrano should have been worried about were the home run balls he was serving up to the other team, not his teammates' effort levels. He has historically been decent against the Cardinals, with a 3.50 ERA, but I do not expect him to be pitching well as the Cubs face off against one of the hottest offenses in the league right now. Zambrano's ERA is also a little worse in day games, rising to 3.69 in his career
I also expect Carpenter to be able to shut down the Cubs' offense on Saturday pretty handily. Carpenter is a much better pitcher than Jake Westbrook, who limited the slumping Cubs' offense. Carpenter rose up big to the challenge on Monday night against the Reds and I expect to come up big for the rest of the season in the NL Central division race. I expect the Cardinals to win by at least 2 runs, probably in a 6-2 type of game, similar to the one played on Friday night. Play the Cardinals on the RL Saturday afternoon against the Cubs.
I am now 14-1 on my blog write-ups so tail or fade, whatever you gotta do
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Cards RL Blog 8/14 (14-1 on blogs)
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