Intro
The now 63-65 Cardinals are mired in the muck. Essentially playing out the string, while hanging on to the hope a miracle occurs. It has happened before. Except they actually have to assemble some wins in a row for such miracles to appear.
The 61-66 Rays are also mired in mediocrity. At five under .500 and five teams to catch, there is no hopeful talk of still being on the edge of the Wild Card race.
The Pitching Matchups (projected)
Thursday – Gray vs Joe Boyle @ 6:35 (all times Central)
Friday
– Mikolas vs Adrian House @ 6:35p
Saturday – Off Day, All Day
Sunday – Liberatore vs Ryan Pepiot @ 11:10a
Quick peek at the pitching/run prevention
On Thursday, we should see 25-year-old right Joe Boyle. This will be his 4th start. He is a high K, high BB style pitcher. Where have you heard that before? If you consider 24.5% K rate high, anyway. 12.5% walk rate. With all of 32 IP under his belt this year take all of it with a grain of salt.
On Friday, now 32-year-old right-hander Adrian Houser takes the mound. You may remember his Brewer days. He carries a 2.67 ERA and a 3.57 FIP. He is the kind of low-K, low-walk style pitcher that drives the Cardinals crazy. He also seems like a Cardinal prototype pitcher. Perhaps why he is in Tampa.
On Sunday, we should see 28-year-old righty Ryan Pepiot. He carries a 3.95 ERA/4.56 FIP. He has a relatively decent 24.3% K rate coupled with an 8.3% walk rate, effectively maintaining a K-BB spread > 15%.
The Rays and Cardinals bullpen look the same statistically. Both good, some mix of control guys and some high octane guys.
If there is any daylight between these two teams, it is defense. Whereas the Cardinals rank at the top, as measured by OAA, the Rays are near the bottom (26th) in OAA.
A peek at the offense
Their offense is slightly better than the Cardinals. Jonathen Arando (143 wRC+) and Junior Caminero (121 wRC+) lead them. I bet the Guardians regret trading Caminero. 121 wRC+ at the ripe age of 21. Yandy Diaz and Brandon Lowe are the same 121 wRC+. Then everyone else is below average.
Overall
The baseball park is a factor, but hard to quantize. Steinbrenner Field is excluded from Statcast Park Factors. I suspect is gooses offense a bit, but Tampa’s hitting and batting stats follow normal home-away declines, so nothing outrageous at just a brief glance.
The only thing guaranteed in this series is the Cardinals will return either above or below .500.
Cardinal updates
The Cardinals are coming off a series win at Miami as they try and claw back to (and over) .500.
I read about an interview with Nolan Arenado today. He hopes to be light hitting soon. Full of optimism, at least in the words. It’s Aug 20. If he isn’t hitting, what are the real odds of him going through a progression (tee, soft-toss, BP, live BP) and then getting rehab games in after missing more than a month? To bring him back for maybe the last two weeks? Seems like this is a guy who is running out of runway.
