Home > Top Stories > The Bird's Eye View: Atlanta
Posted Sunday, April 26, 2009 @ 11:00pm by Cardinal70
How We Got Here
The Cardinals have feasted on home cooking, having a nine-game winning streak at Busch snapped on Sunday by the Cubs. The Cards sport a 10-3 record under the Arch, compared to the 3-3 mark away from St. Louis. The Redbirds are also coming off a personally satisfying series win against their rivals from Chicago, highlighted by another Albert Pujols grand slam.
Atlanta sits just two games out of first even with a .500 record. They lost two out of three to the lowly Nationals before taking two of three from Cincinnati over the weekend. The Braves also had to place All-Star catcher Brian McCann on the disabled this weekend as well, so he will miss the upcoming series.
Past Is Prologue
The Cards and Braves have had some post-season history, to be sure. The Cards were a win away from the World Series in 1996 before Atlanta took three straight games. The two teams also met up in the infamous 2000 NLDS, where St. Louis moved on but not after losing a pitcher due to wildness (but, hey, seven years later they gained an outfielder, so they have that going for them.) Other than those postseason meetings, though, there hasn't really been a lot to the Atlanta/St. Louis get-togethers, since the teams have never been that close geographically nor in the same division.
Pitching Matchups
The series opens with Joel Pineiro going against Jair Jurrjens. Pineiro seems to have benefited from a full and healthy offseason and spring training, as he sits at 3-0 with an ERA slightly over 4, an ERA mainly based on his five runs in five innings against Arizona in a game that the Cardinals already had mainly in hand. His last outing was a two-run, eight-inning affair against the Mets, which was more encouraging. In his career, Pineiro is 0-1 with an atrocious 8.44 ERA. He's pitched in five games against the Braves, starting only two of them.
Jurrjens is only in his second full year, but it's been a strong start to that sophomore campaign. He's 2-1 with a miniscule 1.42 ERA in those games and three of the four earned runs he has allowed this season came in his second game against Washington. He's coming off a 7 2/3 outing where he allowed no runs and six hits in his second outing against the Nats. He's faced the Cardinals once and got a no-decision, allowing three runs in seven innings.
Game 2 pits Kyle Lohse against Jo-Jo Reyes. Lohse has also had a strong start to the season, though he left his last outing with a jammed knee. All indications are he's fine and should be 100% come Tuesday. That's good news for St. Louis, since he's 3-0 with a 2.42 ERA, though a slight cause of concern is that he has not lasted past the fifth in his last two starts. He's posted five starts against the Braves in his career and has a 2-1 record to show for it, though his ERA is just over 5 against Atlanta.
It was Reyes's return from the minors that forced the Braves to designate Blaine Boyer for assignment, allowing the Cardinals to obtain their latest bullpen member. Reyes didn't do much with his first start, giving up five runs in just shy of six innings against Pittsburgh. He's not had a lot of success against St. Louis in his career either, putting up an 0-2, 4.24 mark.
The series wraps with Adam Wainwright facing Javier Vazquez in what would seem to be, on paper, a pitcher's duel. Wainwright finally looked like the pitcher Cardinal Nation has been expecting in his last start, where he allowed one earned run in seven innings against the Cubs. On the season, Wainwright is 2-0 with a 2.70 ERA, though he has walked 13 batters in 23.1 innings. Wainwright, who grew up following the Braves and was drafted by them before being dealt in the JD Drew trade to St. Louis, is 3-0 with a 1.12 ERA against his hometown team.
Vazquez, who was obtained by the Braves from the White Sox in the offseason, is showing that the return to the National League is agreeing with him. He has an ERA of 2.63 and a 2-1 record in his first go-around in an Atlanta uniform. In his last outing, he allowed only one earned run in six innings against the Reds. Going deep into games is an issue for him, however; in all four starts, he's gone exactly six innings. From his days as an Expo and his brief stay in Arizona, he's 2-6 against the Cardinals with a 4.01 ERA.
Conclusion
The Cardinals are going to have to show that they can win games on the road and not give the Braves too many extra opportunities with errors. The Braves are dealing with injuries to McCann and Garrett Anderson, plus Chipper Jones is day-to-day, so St. Louis may be catching them at the right time.
All games are on FSN and KTRS. The Atlanta YNOT is up as well!
Cardinal70 writes regularly on his blog, C70 At The Bat.
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