Cardinals start a 9-game road trip
Intro
The 19-19 Cardinals embark on a 9 game, 3 city road trip through Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and then Kansas City. This road trip comes on the heels of an outstanding home stand where they took five of six from the Mets and Pirates.
The 17-21 Nationals are coming off their own 9 game road trip where they went 4-5. A young-ish team that has gradually improved the last couple of years, with a couple of young, high-end talents.
The Venue
Nationals Park slightly favors offense, in terms of run scored. The outliers are that it suppresses K’s worse than Busch does (weird) and enhances singles at the expense of extra base hits. On the surface, it appears this park fits the Cardinals strengths and weaknesses, in that their offense is singles oriented, they don’t have much power to suppress, and their pitching won’t miss the suppressed K’s because they don’t K that many hitters anyway (except Gray, who won’t pitch this series).
The Pitching Match-ups
Friday – Fedde vs. Parker @ 5:45p (Central)
Saturday – Pallante vs Williams @ 3:05p
Sunday – Mikolas vs Gore @ 12:35p
Quick peak at the Nationals pitching
Overall, the Nationals pitching is not their strength. They are 13th in the NL is run allowed. By comparison, they allow about 1 run a game more than the Cardinal staff does.
On Friday, 25-year-old Mitchell Parker will bring in a K and BB rate almost equal, both horrible at ~12%. He somehow has an FIP just over 4. His ground ball rate is below 50% and his BABIP is .223. He avoids HRs like the plague but has an xFIP of 5.46. He is a lefty. This will be an interesting test for this Cardinal line-up.
On Saturday, right-hander 33-year-old Trevor Williams takes the mound. He seems like he has been around forever. 18% K rate, 7% walk rate, FIP and ERA both around 4.50. He is a flyball pitcher, going against a lower power team in a park that suppresses extra base hits.
On Sunday, the Nationals put forth their best pitcher, 26-year-old Mckenzie Gore. His nice 3.33 is exceeded only by an absolutely stellar 2.76 FIP. He is one of those cats that consistently has worse results than his FIP suggests he should. He is very good. And a lefty. 36% K rate!! 7% BB rate. This guy is good. We’ve seen him pitch a lot in Jupiter.
A peak at the Nationals offense
Their best hitters are CJ Abrams and James Wood. Wood carries a .937 OPS. Very nice. Abrams comes in at .855. They have a break-out named Alex Call, a 30-year-old OFer who somehow has accumulated 1.6 WAR in his last 50 games. That .403 BABIP last year and the .375 this year suggests some regression is coming. He carries a 9% K rate and an 18% walk rate. This guy is either a mirage or a late-blooming HOF caliber player. Overall, the Nationals offense is on par with the Cardinals.
Cardinal updates
The bullpen should be in good shape coming into this series. Two consecutive days off, plus two seven inning starts have limited the bullpen load this week.
Baker was sent to Memphis, Herrera activated for this series. Seems like they want to get Herrera’s bat in the line-up and expect to DH him for a bit to make sure any lingering knee soreness resolves.