THE REDBIRD REVIEW
The Cubs are in the neighborhood for a four-game baseball jamboree that opens Friday evening at Busch Stadium. The rivals will play a day/night doubleheader Saturday, and go at it one more time on Sunday before shutting down for the All-Star break.
This is an important series for both teams. The Cardinals were rocking and rolling until Kansas City came to town and stopped the music with a doubleheader sweep. The Cubs were having a slumberous, injury-bedeviled season until banging their way out of deep-state inertia.
The Cubs bring a four-game winning streak to town. They arrived from Baltimore after sweeping three from American League top-branch Orioles. And the Cubs were damn rude about it, pillaging Camden Yards for a 20-2 combined score over three nights.
The unruliness began July 4. And during their 6-1 reaffirmation of life in the NL wild-card race, the Cubs averaged 5.9 runs, batted .310 with runners in scoring position, pitched to a 1.43 ERA and outscored their victims 41-12. Hey, hey!
“It’s huge,” Cubs starting pitcher Justin Steele said after overwhelming the Orioles on Thursday. “It’s the kind of thing you need to be doing, especially in the spot we’re in. But we’re feeling good. The boys are rolling right now. It’s fun.”
After cratering to a 39-48 record through July 3, the Cubs have regained relevance in the NL’s cockamamie scramble for a playoff spot. As play resumes Friday, The Cubs are 3 games out of a wild-card spot along with the Reds and Giants. All three teams are 45-49. But after the chronic malaise that festered into early July, the Cubs are feeling alive again. Maybe manager Craig Counsell was a good hire by the Cubs after all, and yes, I’m being sarcastic.
‘‘We’re pitching well, [and] we’re hitting at the same time,’’ starting pitcher Jameson Taillon said. ‘‘We’re playing defense, making big plays. It’s nice when all of it lines up together. I feel like we’ve been kind of chasing each other. We won’t pitch, we’ll hit; we won’t hit; we’ll pitch. It’s just nice when it all lines up. Hopefully we can just stay right there.”
The Cardinals are hoping for another outcome this weekend: to hose the Cubs down, and extinguish the hot-streak flames. To handle the assignment, St. Louis manager Oli Marmol has lined up his four elder starters in this order: Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, Kyle Gibson and Miles Mikolas.
Even with considerable injury duress, the Cubs have one of the finest rotations in the majors. Led by Shota Imanaga, Steele and Taillon, the North Siders rank seventh overall (third in the NL) with a 3.63 starting-pitching ERA.
Chicago is 13-4 this season in games started by Imanaga, the All-Star with a 2.97 ERA and 11 quality starts in his first MLB season. Steele has a 1.48 ERA in a nine-start stretch that includes eight quality starts. Taillon has a 2.37 ERA during his streak of six consecutive quality starts.
The Cardinals won’t see Imanaga and Steele this weekend. But savvy veteran Kyle Hendricks is scheduled to start Friday’s game, and Taillon goes on Sunday afternoon.
Young Hayden Wesneski is getting a look in the rotation until injured starters begin to return after the All-Star break. That list includes Javier Assad, Jordan Wicks, Ben Brown and Caleb Kilian.
An injury-wracked Chicago bullpen was a mess for much of the season, getting blasted for a 4.53 ERA (25th) through June 19. But the IL return of the valuable Mark Leiter and the addition of former Yankee Jorge Lopez has calmed the commotion. Over their last 19 games the Cubs have a 2.14 bullpen ERA that’s No. 2 in the majors since June 21.
On the downside, the Cubs lost outfielder Cody Bellinger (broken finger) during the Baltimore series. The former Dodger wasn’t having a robust season – Bellinger’s wRC+ is only seven percent above league average offensively – but his absence is a blow for the Chicago offense. Even with their recent rampage accounted for, the Cubs rank 18th in the majors in runs per game (4.2) and are 23rd in slugging and 24th in homers.
Bellinger is unlikely to return until sometime in the first half of August. That said, Cardinal pitchers will be challenged by three blazing hitters this weekend …
* Since May 26, Ian Happ is slugging .607 with a .990 OPS, 12 homers and 42 RBI. The 42 RBIs are second to Aaron Judge (44) in the majors over that time. And since Happ’s lava-hot streak began 41 games ago, he ranks fifth in the majors in slugging and seventh in OPS. As we know, Happ shreds St. Louis pitching even when he’s cold, so watch out for him this weekend.
* Last offseason the Cubs acquired first baseman Michael Busch from the Dodgers and it’s turning out to be a helluva deal for Chicago. For the season Busch’s wRC+ is 40 percent above league average offensively and ranks third to Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman among MLB first basemen. After an extensive funk, Busch has been ripping it with this set of numbers since June 7: .350 average, .435 OBP, .570 slug, 1.005 OPS. Busch walks a lot and continues to lower his strikeout rate.
* Since the start of June, right fielder Seiya Suzuki is slugging .534 with an .883 OPS and his wRC+ is 47 percent above league average offensively.
If the Cubs can stay in the wild-card pack until the July 30 trading deadline, they’ll be adding to the roster instead of subtracting from it. But any desire to trade Bellinger has been squelched by his injury. The Cubs have plenty of prospects to proffer in trade discussions.
Chicago is said to be keenly interested in 33-year old Rockies catcher Elias Diaz, who is eligible for free agency after the season. He’s slightly above average offensively but is rated as the sixth-best defensive catcher in the majors based on Statcast’s Fielding Run Value metric.
Because of their dominant sweep of the Orioles, the Cubs are a more intriguing team that warrants extra scrutiny. It would be a mistake to overlook them. Not that the Cardinals will do that given the close-call games they’ve played against each other this season.
The Cardinals are 4-1 against the Cubs so far in 2024, but let’s remember that three of the St. Louis victories over Chicago came by one run. And in the other Cardinal win (3-0 score) the game was tied 0-0 through seven innings. The Cubs are a better team now than when the teams played two series against each other between May 25 and June 16.
Coming in, the Cubs are four games behind the second-place Cardinals in the NL Central. If one of the teams can win three of the four games, it would cause a two-game ripple in the standings. For the sake of conversation … if the Cardinals win three of four, they’ll lead the Cubs by six games going into the All-Star break. If the Cubs win three of four, they’d be within two games of the Cardinals by sundown on Sunday.
The Cubs aren’t as bad as they’ve looked. But is their 6-1 run an aberration? Was this the start of something big for the Cubs, or just a tantalizing tease?
The Cardinals are good … but how good? Sure, they’re tied with the Phillies for the NL’s best record (33-20) since May 12. Can we trust that? The Kansas City sweep on Wednesday may have been nothing more than a lousy day at work for the Cardinals. Or it could have been a warning. The Redbirds are 7-6 in their last 13 games. Is this just a lull, or are they descending back to earth?
This Cubs-Cardinals series has a little extra kick. The old rivals are going to play some hardball and get a feel for what is real.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.
Please follow Bernie on X @b_miklasz and Threads @miklaszb
For weekly Cards talk, listen to the “Seeing Red” podcast with Will Leitch and Miklasz. It’s available on Apple, Spotify, or where you get your podcasts. Follow @seeingredpod on X for a direct link.
Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions and Cots Contracts unless otherwise noted.
For the last 36 years Bernie Miklasz has entertained, enlightened, and connected with generations of St. Louis sports fans.
While best known for his voice as the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch for 26 years, Bernie has also written for The Athletic, Dallas Morning News and Baltimore News American. A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has hosted radio shows in St. Louis, Dallas, Baltimore and Washington D.C.
Bernie, his wife Kirsten and their cats reside in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood of St. Louis.
