A Battle Between....Not Titans
The Cardinals and Cubs have had some memorable tussles. It's unlikely this weekend will rank among them.
Way back in 2013, I wrote for a Cubs blog. Not regularly or anything, but the site did a big blogathon up to the trade deadline, if I remember right, then had guest posts the next day while the author recuperated. So, for my guest post, I took a look at some memorable Cards/Cubs games.
There were a lot of them. So many that he split my work into four posts on his site. If you are interested in reading about them, you can find that here. If you are into spoilers, though, they were:
Mark McGwire’s 62nd homer
A 1999 ninth-inning rally capped by Craig Paquette’s single
A six-run ninth-inning rally in 2002 on Sunday Night Baseball finished off by an Edgar Renteria home run
The only Cards/Cubs game I ever attended, where Mark Prior did his thing and Albert Pujols did his
The July 2004 comeback that featured three Pujols homers
Another Sunday Night Baseball game, this time in 2006, with a walkoff grand slam by Gary Bennett
September 24, 2011, otherwise known as the Adron Chambers scamper
Since then, of course, we have had the Wrigley Field Massacre of 2019, highlighted by the game where Yadier Molina and Paul DeJong went back-to-back off of Craig Kimbrel. There are so many legendary matchups in the history of these two teams—Stan Musial’s 3000th hit, the Ryne Sandberg game—and those are the kind of things we get excited about when St. Louis comes to Chicago or vice versa.
This weekend, though, is not likely to be much of that. The Cardinals enter one game under .500. Depending on the results of the game Thursday night against the Phillies, the Cubs will come in even up or two games down (late edit: Phillies won in convincing fashion, so the Cards will have the better record when the two teams match up.) St. Louis won just nine times in June, six of those coming against the Marlins and Diamondbacks. The Cubs just snapped an 11-game losing streak on Wednesday, a stretch that saw them go to Eric Sogard as a pitcher three times. (He’s been on the mound five times this season, if you feel like the Cardinal staff has been bad.) There’s little hope of real scintillating baseball on the North Side over the next three days.
Sure, any time they get together magic could happen, but it helps to have some weight and context with it. It helps if teams are good or are at least worth following.
It doesn’t mean that they won’t be fun games to watch (though they may not be) or that they don’t mean anything. If the Cardinals win the series, they are at .500 at the break, probably just a couple of games out of second and still feel like they are breathing, while the Cubs shift into full sell mode. If the opposite happens, the Cubs still probably sell but the Cardinals may change their plans for the next two weeks.
Besides, it’s the Cubs. The Cardinals could win all of 18 games in a season, but if all of those games were against the baby bears, I wouldn’t say I’d be happy, but I wouldn’t be as upset as I could be.
The Last Time We Met…..
Four weeks ago, the Cardinals had an off day before going into Wrigley for three games. They were just three games behind the Cubs, who were tied with the Brewers at the top of the division, and looked to at least cut into that gap. Instead, a sweep by Chicago left them six games out.
It started off on the right foot, with Matt Carpenter and Nolan Arenado giving the Cards a 2-0 lead and then, after the Cubs got one, Dylan Carlson and Arenado made Chicago pay for walking Johan Oviedo to start the fifth inning. Suddenly it’s a 5-1 and Oviedo looks like he might be in line for that first major league win.
Unfortunately, that’s when the wheels started to come off. Oviedo, with a little help from a passed ball and a throwing error—these were two different incidents, mind you—and a triple by Sergio Alcantara, gave up three runs and had to leave with just one out in the fourth. Ryan Helsley held that line but Daniel Ponce de Leon gave up a game-tying homer to Anthony Rizzo in the sixth. It felt like the outcome was inevitable at this point and it wasn’t long in coming. Joc Pederson doubled in two runs off of Genesis Cabrera in the seventh and Willson Contreras homered in the eighth for the final margin of victory for the Cubbies.
The second game held no such hope or drama. John Gant had been walking a tightrope all year long as a starter but this is where he first started slipping off of it. Gant allowed five runs, courtesy of five walks (one with the bases loaded, of course) in the second inning. Well, Jake Woodford was on the mound for one of them, when he hit Anthony Rizzo with the bases loaded. It was….a typical 2021 game. The Cards scored one before the five spot, one after, but that was it in a 7-2 loss.
The final game was one of Carlos Martinez’s finest this season. He threw seven innings, struck out six, and allowed only two runs. However, you have to be almost perfect when you go up against *checks notes* Zach Davies. Davies went 6.2 and allowed only two hits to a Cardinal offense that, in the past, had been able to handle him. The two-out RBI singles from Pederson and Rizzo was all the Chicago folks needed for the sweep, putting the Cardinals six back in the division.
Season series: 1-5
The Opponent
On June 24, the Cubs no-hit the Dodgers. It was a combined no-hitter but, given the team it came against, no less impressive for that fact. That left them, as they had been much of June, tied with the Brewers for first place.
Then it all went to pieces.
Over the next 11 games, the Cubs were outscored 83-35. They lost low scoring games. They lost high scoring games. They got blown up early. Over that span they were 26th in wRC+ (the Cardinals were 19th) and 28th in pitching fWAR at -0.5 (STL was 23rd). The starters were a huge problem (they had a 5.76 ERA in the span) but the bullpen was much worse (7.40 ERA). Again, if your second baseman turns into one of your most used relievers, you’ve got issues.
They were able to beat the Phillies on Wednesday night to stop the streak but all the same underlying issues are still there plus the threat of a fire sale hanging over many of their free agent heads. They are still dangerous, of course, but they have been exposed as less than intimidating.
The Mound Men
Friday: Wade LeBlanc (0-1, 4.24 ERA, 5.27 FIP, 5.44 xERA) vs. Kyle Hendricks (10-4, 3.83 ERA, 4.91 FIP, 4.99 xERA)
Saturday: Kwang Hyun Kim (3-5, 3.39 ERA, 4.00 FIP, 4.33 xERA) vs. Zach Davies (5-5, 4.28 ERA, 4.82 FIP, 6.22 xERA)
Sunday: Adam Wainwright (7-5, 3.58 ERA, 3.98 FIP, 3.77 xERA) vs. Trevor Williams (3-2, 5.51 ERA, 4.91 FIP, 4.70 xERA)
—xERA courtesy of FanGraphs
We all know the legend of Kyle Hendricks when it comes to the Cardinals. He went up against John Gant in the series before and allowed just two runs in six innings. On the season, he has three earned runs (and two more unearned) in 12.2 innings vs. St. Louis. Since his rough start to the season that saw his ERA inflate to over 7, he’s been much more himself with a 2.72 ERA over his last 12 starts. Last time, he gave up five hits and one run to the Reds over six innings.
Zach Davies, as mentioned above, is someone the Cardinals usually have good success with but this year, he’s not given up a run against St. Louis in 11.2 innings. However, it’s not just the Cardinals, as he was the starting pitcher on that combined no-no of the Dodgers. His last outing was two runs (both solo homers) in five innings against the Phillies, though he walked two and struck out one.
Trevor Williams takes over for Jake Arrieta, who has a 10.41 ERA over his last six starts and gave up a grand slam to Andrew McCutchen in his last start before registering an out. Williams came into relief in that one and gave up seven runs (though only three earned) on his own, so it’s possible this isn’t a huge upgrade. That was Williams’s first outing since May, when he allowed one run in six innings against the Pirates. St. Louis saw him last in September 2020, when he was with Pittsburgh. He was the starter in the first game of a doubleheader and the Cards tagged him for six runs (five earned) in 4.1 innings. He’s made 16 appearances, 13 of which were starts, in his career against the Redbirds and has a 5.64 ERA to show for it.
The Hot Seat
I’m not sure who really should go here right now. Perhaps Paul DeJong? He’s hitting .171/.284/.316 since returning from the injured list early in June. A story in The Athletic said the Cardinals might be a party if Trevor Story became available, but it was from Jim Bowden so I don’t put much stock into that.
Assorted Crudités
Nolan Arenado is hitting .296 with three extra base hits in July. Paul Goldschmidt is hitting .333 with one extra base hit (and has an eight game hitting streak if you reach back into June). The Cardinals haven’t really seen these two click at the same time for an extended period of time. Of course, now they are and here comes the break.
Arenado and Alex Reyes head back to Colorado to be a part of the All-Star Game. Reyes has given up runs in his last two games (which coincides with his selection) but you can’t begrudge him the opportunity to hang out with the best of the game and be counted in that number. We thought he’d have a couple of these under his belt by now but his career has been a long, strange road.
Genesis Cabrera has been touched for runs in three of his last four starts. Since June 5, his ERA is 5.40, though he’s only allowed one of nine inherited runners to score. Cabrera tends to go up and down depending on his control. He walked two batters in the first 10.2 innings of that span and had a 2.70 ERA. He’s walked five in his last three innings and has an ERA of 15.00.
Personal Links
Currently listening to: Cardinals Off Day Episode 12. I mean, I just got started on it, only about five minutes in, because I finished off Chirps earlier in the day. If I decide to mow the yard this weekend, I’ll probably have Ben and Ben join me.
Recommended reading: Ben Cerutti did a deep dive on Jeff Albert which is well worth your time. We talk a lot about Albert but what’s his thinking and what are the players saying?
We’ll have a new Meet Me at Musial up soon after you get this. Well, soon is relative, but it’ll be out in time for you to listen before the series kicks off. Gateway to Baseball Heaven will return Sunday.
Currently watching: Well, not currently, but looking forward to seeing Black Widow this afternoon. We went ahead and got the Disney+ Premiere Access since it was a little cheaper than four tickets, my wife still isn’t excited about theaters, and honestly, getting to pause the movie for bathroom breaks can’t be overrated.
I’m going to start including a Bible verse in this section, at least the times I remember to do so. It’s a link so you can ignore it if you want and it won’t have any relevance to the Cardinals, but it is something I feel like I should be doing. So this time, it’s Hebrews 12:1.