First pitch: Thursday, 7:10 p.m. ET
Line: St. Louis -140, Cincinnati +130, Total: 8

The Cardinals, losers of five of their past seven, will be looking to get back on the right track when they face the Reds in Cincinnati on Thursday.

St. Louis has arguably been the best team in baseball this season, but comes into this game after a recent stretch of poor play. The Cardinals are coming off of back-to-back series losses against the Pirates and Cubs respectively and will now try to turn things around against a Reds team that has been extremely disappointing on the year. Cincinnati comes into this one after losing two straight games against Pittsburgh and the team has now lost four of its past six. The Cardinals have gotten the best of the Pirates recently as well, going 8-4 against Cincinnati this season and 4-2 when playing at Great American Ball Park as well. This game will feature a couple of southpaws, as LHP Jaime Garcia (8-4, 1.89 ERA, 73 K) will be on the mound for St. Louis and he’ll be going up against LHP John Lamb (0-3, 6.11 ERA, 33 K) for the Reds. St. Louis is 16-1 against the money line with a tired bullpen that has thrown 13 or more innings over the past three games on the year. The Cardinals are also an impressive 73-30 against the money line as a favorite of -110 or higher this season. Working in the Reds favor, however, is the fact that the Cardinals are also just 7-18 against the money line in road games after a one run win over the past two seasons. 2B Kolten Wong (Calf) is questionable for the Cardinals, who are already without OF Matt Holliday (Quad) in this one. The Reds, meanwhile, are relatively healthy entering this game.

Jamie Garcia is pitching better than he has in his entire career for the Cardinals this season. Garcia is coming off of a stellar outing against the Pirates, pitching seven innings without giving up an earned run. He struck out nine batters in that game and rebounded from a shaky performance against the Giants on Aug. 30 (6.1 IP, 10 H, 4 ER). Garcia has faced this Reds team once already this year, allowing three earned runs on four hits in six innings of work on Jul. 28. If the Cardinals can get something going offensively then that type of performance could earn his team a victory on Thursday. OF Stephen Piscotty (.329, 4 HR, 30 RBI) has been the Cardinals’ best hitter as of late. Over the past two games, he has gone 3-for-8 with four RBI. He’s racked up a total of seven RBI over the past 10 games and will need to continue to hit the ball well moving forward. OF Jason Heyward (.287, 11 HR, 51 RBI) drove in a run in Wednesday’s win, but he has five hitless games in the past 10 contests. The Cardinals need him to find some consistency, as he is one of their most productive hitters when he’s on. Another guy that St. Louis is counting on is OF Randal Grichuk (.281, 16 HR, 46 RBI), who returned to the lineup three games ago after hurting his elbow on Aug. 16. Grichuk was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts on Wednesday, but did homer on Tuesday. He should be able to add some firepower once he knocks off the rust of missing nearly a month of action.

The Reds are sending John Lamb out against one of the best teams in baseball and he’s going to need to be really dialed in to escape this game without seriously damaging his ERA and his team’s chances of winning. Lamb has struggled mightily this season, allowing eight or more hits in three of his five starts. He most recently faced the Brewers on Sep. 5 and allowed six earned runs in just 5.2 innings of work. He allowed the Brewers to put the ball in play 21 times in the game and he must avoid more bats against the Cardinals on Thursday. A few of the Reds players will be looking forward to facing Garcia in this game, as 2B Brandon Phillips (.293, 11 HR, 56 RBI), 1B Joey Votto (.316, 27 HR, 70 RBI) and OF Jason Bourgeois (.236, 2 HR, 11 RBI) have all had success against the lefty in the past. Phillips has been the best of the bunch, going 13-for-43 with two homers, four doubles and eight RBI against Garcia in his career. Votto is 9-for-31 with a homer and five RBI against him and Bourgeois is 6-for-14 with four doubles and three RBI in the matchup. If any of them can get it going then it would really spark a lineup that has scored four or less runs in six of the past 10 games.