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Cardinals host Phillies on Wednesday
By: Freddy Wander - StatFox
Published: 4/29/2015  at  10:02:00 AM
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PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES (8-13)

at ST LOUIS CARDINALS (13-6)

First pitch: Wednesday, 8:00d p.m. ET
Line: St. Louis -180, Philadelphia +170, Total: 7

The Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals play their third of four games in this set when they meet on Wednesday night.

The Phillies are mostly a team without an identity and that has been evidenced by their 5-11 record since starting the year going 3-2. It hasn’t been all bad, though, as they’ve strung together a solid stretch recently with three wins in their last five games against both Atlanta and St. Louis. They couldn’t stop the Cardinals on Tuesday night in an 11-5 beatdown in which they managed to go a mere 3-for-15 with RISP and committed a pair of errors. SS Freddy Galvis (.368) had another solid game with three hits and has put up three hits in three of his past five outings while at the bottom of this Philadelphia order. As usual, the Cardinals look like a team ready to make a playoff run in 2015 and have taken the victory in 10 of their last 13 contests. They’ve yet to lose a series on the young season and after losing the first game of this one by a score of 4-1, the offense came alive on Tuesday. In the pounding, they posted 15 hits and were an amazing 8-for-15 with RISP as the 1-4 hitters combined to go 10-for-18 with six RBIs. With his fifth multi-hit game in his last six outings, 3B Matt Carpenter (.383) continues to play at a torrid pace and leads the league with 12 doubles on the year. RHP Aaron Harang (2-1, 1.37 ERA) will look to build on his tremendous campaign thus far when he gets the call and faces RHP Carlos Martinez (2-0, 1.35 ERA) of the host team. The road loss for the Phillies on Tuesday was expected as they are just 2-7 when away from home on the year as St. Louis has a record of 6-2 in front of its fans. Despite the Phillies not being the best of ball clubs over the past few years, they have done fairly well against this always competitive Cardinals group, as St. Louis holds a slight 9-7 edge (6-3 at home) with the teams having split their last six meetings dating back to last year. Trends show that the Cardinals are a meager 11-26 (.297) after a win by six runs or more in the last three seasons as they’ve also managed to go a solid 21-4 (.840) in home games after two straight contests with no home runs since the start of last year. Both sides will be missing some outfield depth as OF Domonic Brown (Achillies) remains on the DL for Philadelphia while both OFs Randal Grichuk (Back) and Tommy Pham (Quad) sit for St. Louis.

Harang has seen his performances really fluctuate from year-to-year, but has been able to successfully build on a big 2014 season with the Braves when he compiled a 3.57 ERA over 33 starts and kept hitters to a career-low 0.66 HR/9. He did all this despite batters hitting an above average .318 BABIP against him and was able to get double-digit wins for the third time in four years. So far in 2015, he has forced batters into groundballs 86.7% of the time and has given up just one homer in his 26.1 frames (0.34 HR/9). He has not fared too well when facing the Cardinals in his career, though, and owns a 7-15 record (9-18 team record) with a 4.33 ERA (1.28 WHIP) as he lost both outings against them last year despite getting a 13:1 K/BB ratio over 12 innings of work. Both OF Peter Bourjos (7-for-15, 1 double, 1 triple, 1 HR, 4 RBI) and SS Jhonny Peralta (10-for-30, 3 doubles, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 8 K) have seen the ball well when Harang is on the mound, but C Yadier Molina and OF Matt Holliday have combined to go a putrid 14-for-72 (.194) with four RBIs and 13 strikeouts in the matchup. The bullpen for this team is 3-2 with a 3.02 ERA (1.61 WHIP) and has successfully converted 5-of-6 saves. Jonathan Papelbon (1.08 ERA, 5 saves) has continued to be one of the best closers in baseball and owns a 9:1 K/BB ratio with four hits allowed in his 8.1 innings pitched.

Martinez becomes an even more vital piece of this ballclub with the season-ending injury to Adam Wainwright and the Cardinals should have confidence in the 23-year-old as he has a 3.70 ERA and 9.0 K/9 over 56 career innings as a starter. He’s already mowed down 21 batters over 20 frames in 2015, but has struggled to keep the ball in the yard with batters going deep three times already (1.35 HR/9). He has just one start against this opponent in his young career and it was solid as he went five innings, giving up three runs on three hits with five strikeouts (1 walk) and earned the victory. No player for Philadelphia has had more than three at-bats against him as the current offensive players have hit a mere .167 in the matchup (3-for-18) with 1B Ryan Howard (2-for-2) and 3B Cody Asche (1-for-2, 1 double, 3 RBI) being the only ones to have hits. The relievers for St. Louis are once again phenomenal and they are a combined 3-2 with a 1.88 ERA (1.08 WHIP) and are 10-for-11 in save opportunities. Trevor Rosenthal (1.04 ERA, 7 saves) continues as the ninth-inning guy and has allowed just two hits with 12 strikeouts in his first 8.2 innings of work.


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