Cubs Come to Busch as Cardinals Look to Reset in Rivalry Weekend

The Cardinal Chronicle
Cubs Come to Busch as Cardinals Look to Reset in Rivalry Weekend
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur

ST. LOUIS — After a rough trip through Milwaukee, St. Louis returns home Friday night for one of those weekends that still carries a little more weight than the schedule page admits. The Chicago Cubs come to Busch Stadium for a three-game series, and for the Cardinals, it is a chance to stop the bleeding, steady the club and remind the division that they are not folding after one ugly stretch.

The timing is hard to miss. St. Louis enters the series at 29-25, with Chicago listed at 30-26, putting the clubs in close company entering the weekend. MLB’s probable pitchers page lists Friday’s opener for 6:15 p.m. CDT at Busch Stadium, with Kyle Leahy scheduled to start for the Cardinals against Cubs left-hander Shota Imanaga.

Leahy, 5-3 with a 4.44 ERA, gets the first chance to set the tone. The right-hander has been asked to handle a larger role this season, and Friday offers the kind of start that can change the feel around a club quickly. Against the Cubs, early traffic matters. Free passes and long innings can tilt a rivalry game in a hurry.

The Cubs counter with Imanaga, who enters at 4-5 with a 4.04 ERA and 67 strikeouts. He remains a difficult matchup when he commands the zone and changes eye levels, but the Cardinals cannot afford to let another opposing starter settle in and dictate the night.

Saturday’s game is also set for 6:15 p.m., with Andre Pallante scheduled for St. Louis against Cubs right-hander Ben Brown. Pallante enters at 5-4 with a 3.76 ERA, while Brown is listed at 1-2 with a 2.01 ERA. The game will be carried nationally on FOX.

Pallante’s assignment may be the most important of the weekend. The Cardinals need innings, rhythm and some old-fashioned damage control from the rotation. When Pallante is right, he can keep the ball on the ground, force early contact and give St. Louis a chance to play cleaner baseball behind him. That has to be the formula.

Sunday night closes the series at 6:20 p.m., with Matthew Liberatore scheduled to face Cubs left-hander Jordan Wicks. Liberatore enters at 2-3 with a 4.76 ERA and 53 strikeouts, while Wicks is listed at 0-1 with a 16.62 ERA. The finale is scheduled for NBC and Peacock.

For Liberatore, the challenge is simple but not easy: build on the swing-and-miss without letting the early inning get away. He struck out 10 in Milwaukee earlier in the week, but the Brewers did their damage early and handed the Cardinals a 5-1 loss. That start showed both sides of the Liberatore story — real stuff, real strikeout ability, and still a need for cleaner execution when the game is being decided in the first few frames.

This weekend is not just about pitching, though. The Cardinals’ offense has to re-enter the conversation. St. Louis has gone through a stretch where too many innings have felt like survival mode. Rivalry weekends do not reward quiet bats. The Cardinals need traffic, pressure and the kind of timely swing that changes the temperature inside Busch Stadium.

The Cubs series also arrives after a division stretch that has exposed some hard truths. The Cardinals have played enough good baseball this season to remain in the hunt, but the NL Central is not waiting around for them to find themselves. Milwaukee already delivered its message. Now Chicago comes to town with a chance to add to the problem — or give St. Louis the opening it needs to answer.

That is what makes this weekend matter.

It is still May. Nobody is handing out trophies, and nobody is packing boxes. But rivalry games have a way of telling a club something about itself. The Cardinals do not need perfection. They need fight, cleaner baseball, and enough offense to let the pitching staff breathe.

The Cubs are in town. Busch Stadium should feel like Busch Stadium.

Now the Cardinals need to play like it.

Series Schedule

Friday, May 29 — 6:15 p.m.
Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals
Shota Imanaga, LHP, vs. Kyle Leahy, RHP
Cards.TV // KMOV-TV // KMOX // WIJR

Saturday, May 30 — 6:15 p.m.
Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals
Ben Brown, RHP, vs. Andre Pallante, RHP
FOX // KMOX // WIJR

Sunday, May 31 — 6:20 p.m.
Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals
Jordan Wicks, LHP, vs. Matthew Liberatore, LHP
NBC // Peacock // KMOX // WIJR

The Cardinal Chronicle, in association with Gateway Sportoos
Preserving the Past, Promoting the Present, and Projecting the Future.

Check out The Cardinal Chronicle for more St. Louis Cardinals coverage, daily farm reports, prospect updates and old-school baseball commentary:
www.cardinalchronicle.com