By Chris Brown / STL Baseball Today | @cbrown_STLBBT | Oct. 11, 2015, 11:57 pm CT
Hoping for Michael Wacha to return to his early season form as they look to rebound from a Game 2 loss, the Cardinals will have their hands full against NL Cy Young Candidate Jake Arrieta as the National League Division Series moves to Wrigley Field for Game 3 Monday night.
Following the Blue Jays 5-1 win over the Rangers on Sunday to keep their season alive, four division series games will played on Monday, meaning the Cards-Cubs game is now slated for a 5:07 pm central time start.
Fresh off a complete game shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL Wild Card Game, Arrieta will look to lead the Cubs to their 14th consecutive victory when he gets the ball. In his last 13 starts, the Cubs’ ace has been nothing short of stellar, allowing just four earned runs while striking out 100 over 97 1/3 innings. The 29-year-old’s 0.41 ERA over the final two months of the regular season was the lowest by any pitcher since ERA became a measured statistic back in 1912.
Although many across baseball have already assumed further dominance and a Cubs’ win on Monday, the Cardinals aren’t intimidated. They’re ready to approach Arrieta in the same way that’s resulted in ace-caliber pitchers tripping up in the postseason against the redbirds in years past.
“The thing with us is when we get to the postseason, we don’t care who is pitching,” Kolten Wong told MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch. “We understand that Arrieta is a good pitcher and has been doing amazing things the whole year. But in the postseason, you never know what’s going to happen.”
It was just last year that the Cardinals stunned the Dodgers and ace Clayton Kershaw, as Langosch details:
“Kershaw soared into the playoffs last year with a 1.77 season ERA. The Dodgers had won 23 of his 27 starts and were ready to have him pitch twice in a best-of-five series. He would lose both games, as the Cardinals manufactured seventh-inning rallies in both to stun the Dodgers ace.
He had, of course, not forgotten just losing to the Cardinals twice in the 2013 NL Championship Series. Kershaw won the Cy Young Award both years.”
However, that certainly doesn’t mean a little luck wouldn’t be necessary for the Cards against Arrieta.
“We’re going to have to catch a break,” Matt Carpenter said. “When you get into those moments in the game where everybody knows this could be the chance you break it open, you have to break it open. That will make the difference. … We have to get him worn down and maybe in the seventh inning when he’s between 80-100 pitches, if we can get a big swing off of him, maybe it’s one that changes the game.”
The Cardinals will counter with Michael Wacha, who’s looking to right the ship following a shaky second half. After posting a 2.93 ERA while collecting ten wins prior to the All-Star break, the 24-year-old slumped down the stretch, pitching to a less-inspiring 4.01 ERA in his final 13 starts.
Prior to the redbirds’ trip to Chicago for games 3 and 4 of the series, Mike Matheny discussed Wacha’s season and his confidence in the young right-hander moving forward.
“You’re going to have ups and downs every season, and this is still a young pitcher,” the Cardinals manager told Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “And we saw some times where it just looked like something was out of sync. We also saw a couple of starts where he looked really good. He’d make a couple of innings in a row that were right. He had the downhill plane; he had the good changeup. He had the breaking ball working, and then he would have one inning that might hurt him. But, it was usually controlling the strike zone, and you could attribute it to a lot of things.”
The regular season stats against the Cubs certainly aren’t in his favor. In four starts, Wacha is 1-2 with a 6.86 ERA against the Northsiders.
But in the postseason, as the expression goes, anything can happen. On Monday evening, Wacha will get the chance to right the ship and silence the Cubs feel-good story.
“We’ve seen him. We know that he’s been good on this stage before, so that’s not one of those uncertainties,” Matheny said. “He’s proved it to himself and now we just go watch him compete against a very good team.”
GAME 4 STARTER TBD
After he appeared in relief of Jaime Garcia in Game 2 on Saturday, Lance Lynn may not get the ball for Game 4 at Wrigley as originally announced by the Cardinals.
“We’re just going to look at everybody,” Matheny said during Sunday’s media session (via Brian Stull of STL Baseball Weekly). “We don’t have to make that decision right now, and always have all of our options open without hemming ourselves in right now.”
As Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch notes, the decision could very well rest on the outcome of Game 3 on Monday:
“If the Cardinals leave Monday night’s game with a lead in the series and have two chances to clinch, they could stick with Lynn. If facing elimination in Game 4 at Wrigley Field, the team could shift to veteran John Lackey on short rest. Lackey would have been scheduled to throw a side session Sunday as preparation for Game 5, but the veteran righthander did not attend the workout at Wrigley. He asked Matheny if he could skip the day and was granted permission, an official confirmed.”
Lynn told Fox Sports Midwest’s Jim Hayes on Sunday that he has yet to be informed of any change from the original plan of him getting the ball for Game 4 on Tuesday.
STL Baseball Today NLDS Coverage
Game 2 Recap: Cubs put squeeze on Cardinals, even series with 6-3 victory
Game 2 Video Recap: Cards fall to Cubs 6-3 in NLDS Game 2
Rough Outing: Despite illness, Garcia says there’s “no excuse” for poor Game 2 performance
The Story Continues: Wainwright shines in first playoff relief appearance since 2006
Series Reset (all times central):
| Game | Date | Time | Matchup | Broadcast |
| Gm 1 | Fri 10/9 | 5:45 pm | CHC 0 @ STL 4 | TBS, KMOX |
| Gm 2 | Sat 10/10 | 4:30 pm | CHC 6 @ STL 3 | TBS, KMOX |
| Gm 3 | Mon 10/12 | 5:07 pm | STL (Wacha) @ CHC (Arrieta) | TBS, KMOX |
| Gm 4 | Tues 10/13 | 3:37 pm | STL (TBA) @ CHC (TBA) | TBS, KMOX |
| *Gm 5 | Thurs 10/14 | 3:37 or 7 pm | CHC (TBA) @ STL (TBA) | TBS, KMOX |
*if necessary
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Feature image used under Creative Commons by Wally Gobetz. No changes made. Image license.
Wacha image used under Creative Commons by user Colleen_S. Image license.
