The St. Louis Cardinals and San Diego Padres wrap up their three-game weekend series in San Diego on Sunday. The Padres have won the first two games of the series.
Floundering
The Cardinals are 40-41 right now and in third place in the National League Central. Over their last 10 games, they are 4-6 including losing their last four. The Cardinals started their season on a hot streak but have gone cold the last couple months. They are in a very tough division in the NL Central and need to get on track to keep up with the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers.
Miles Mikolas will be getting the start for St. Louis in their next game against the Padres. In his last start, Mikolas gave up one run in a loss against the Angels. Mikolas has now dropped six of his last seven decisions. The 30-year-old righty is 5-8 this year with a 4.33 ERA and 65 strikeouts.
The Cardinals have struggled to get the bats going lately, resulting in their losing streak. Their team has been led by their veterans Yadier Molina and Marcell Ozuna. Ozuna leads St. Louis with 20 home runs and 62 RBI, but he is headed to the injured list with a finger injury. Molina leads the team with his .268 batting average.
Look for the Cardinals veterans to continue to lead the team while they hope for their young talent to get rolling and get their whole team firing on all cylinders like they were at the start of the season.
Surging
The Padres are currently 42-40 and in third place, 13 games behind the LA Dodgers in the NL West. They are 7-3 in their last 10 games and 22-20 at home.
Joey Lucchesi will be getting the start for the Padres. Lucchesi is 6-4 this with a 3.95 ERA and 82 strikeouts. The 26-year-old starter didn’t factor into the decision in his last start against the Pirates after giving up four runs in five innings. The Padres went on to lose that game against the Pirates in the 11th inning, 11-10.
Leading the Padres out of the batter’s box is 29-year-old veteran Eric Hosmer. Hosmer leads the team in batting average with .289 and runs batted in with 57. Rightfielder Hunter Renfroe leads the team in home runs with 24 on the season. San Diego will finish out their month of June against the Cardinals before traveling to Chicago to face the Cubs in a three-game series.
What to expect
While the Cardinals look like the better team on paper, the Padres have been getting hotter lately while the Cardinals have been doing the opposite. Mikolas was great for the Cardinals both last year and the start of this year but has fallen off in a bad way lately. Lucchesi won two of his three decisions in June while giving up 10 runs in four games over 23 innings pitched. I would expect the Padres to continue their trend while the Cardinals continue theirs. I like the Padres to win again.
