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Series Preview – St. Louis Cardinals host the Milwaukee Brewers – Sep 19 – 21

Intro

The Cardinals host Milwaukee in a redux of last weekend at their place. This is the last home series of the season for the Cardinals.

The 74-79 Cardinals finish out their home games, pack up and say their goodbyes to St. Louis-based personnel. Some of them will not be back. Meanwhile, Milwaukee at 94-59 is a shoe-in for the playoffs and has only to protect a six-game lead with nine to play. Otherwise, they are really just prepping for the playoffs.

Unless the Cubs get hot and the Brewers fall flat the next couple of days, expect Sunday to play out like a spring training game. A getaway game for both teams, one that will likely not matter in the standings in any meaningful way.

The Pitching Matchups (projected)

Friday - Misiorowski vs Gray @ 7:15p (all times Central)

Saturday - Patrick vs Mikolas @ 6:15p

Sunday - TBD vs Liberatore @ 1:15p

Quick peek at the pitching/run prevention

On Friday, 23-year-old Jacob Misiorowski toes the rubber. 4.35 ERA/3.53 FIP. The Cardinals dented these numbers pretty good in his start last Sunday. He sports an outstanding 33.3% K-rate and high 10.2% walk rate. He is a handful, but not quite as dominating as his first handful of starts that landed him in the All Star game. It will be interesting to see how he bounces back in his very next start. It is not common for a starter to face the same team on consecutive starts, five days apart.

On Saturday, 27-year-old right-hander Chad Patrick takes the mound. He sports a 3.64 ERA and matching 3.69 FIP. Most of that was accumulated prior to mid-season, as he has only made three starts and a couple relief appearances since then. With Quintana going down, they may need him to carry a larger load. 24.7% K-rate, 7.9% BB rate. A very solid pitcher.

On Sunday, TBD is announced. He gets most of Milwaukee’s starts as they prefer to game out starting pitching announcements. To be fair, they may have clinched by Sunday and that may alter their pitching plans. If the game is meaningful to them, expect Peralta. If not, expect a bullpen game.

Milwaukee has a very good bullpen, although a couple of guys (Megill, Miller) are hurt. They rank 4th in baseball in reliever WAR. Their defense is also ranked 4th in MLB by OAA.

A peek at the offense

They have 9 regular or semi-regular players with a wRC+ greater than 110. This is a deep, balanced line-up. Yelich has enjoyed a resurgence this year, crossing the 100 RBI mark, to use an outdated stat.