The Cubs head into St. Louis riding a strong stretch of play, and Monday night’s series opener brings a familiar look to the lineup as they try to keep that momentum rolling against a Cardinals club that has been sliding.
Chicago is coming off another road series win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the recent results have been steady enough to back up the record. The Cubs are 27-18 over the last two months and have been one of the more consistent teams in July.
St. Louis, by contrast, has dropped eight of its last 11 games and is 9-14 this month.
The matchup at Busch Stadium comes after the two teams split their first two meetings in a way that kept things tense. The Cubs narrowly avoided a sweep at Wrigley Field, while the Cardinals took two of three in May at Busch Stadium.
Chicago’s lineup stays mostly unchanged, with Pete Crow-Armstrong leading off and Seiya Suzuki batting second ahead of Alex Bregman. The full order is Crow-Armstrong in center, Suzuki in right, Bregman at third, Carson Kelly as the designated hitter, Michael Busch at first, Nico Hoerner at second, Ian Happ in left, Dansby Swanson at short, and Miguel Amaya behind the plate.
That setup makes sense given the way Crow-Armstrong has been swinging it. The 24-year-old went 7-for-14 in Pittsburgh with two homers, five RBI and four runs scored.
That surge pushed his fWAR to 7.0, which leads all of MLB. He enters Monday with a .290/.388/.545 slash line and a .933 OPS, good for seventh in the majors.
Bregman is the opposite story right now. He sat out Sunday’s finale against the Pirates, is hitless in his last 12 at-bats, and has just a .172 average over his last seven games. The slump has been deeper than that, too: over his last 30 games, he’s hitting .184.
St. Louis counters with J.J. Wetherholt leading off, followed by Jordan Walker, Ivan Herrera, Alec Burleson, Masyn Winn, Nelson Velazquez, Freddy Fermin, Lars Nootbaar and Blaze Jordan.
Burleson has been the Cardinals’ most productive bat lately. He’s 12-for-29 with a .414 average and a .950 OPS over his last seven games. Still, the left-handed matchup could matter here, because Burleson is hitting just .198 with a .506 OPS against left-handed pitching this season.
That brings the focus to David Peterson, who has been settling in nicely for the Cubs. The lefty threw 6.2 scoreless innings against the Detroit Tigers in his last outing and has allowed just one earned run over his last 11.2 innings.
His roughest start as a Cub came against these Cardinals on July 3, when he gave up 10 earned runs on nine hits in Chicago’s 17-1 loss. Outside of that outlier, though, Peterson has been sharp in his other three starts for the Cubs, allowing only three earned runs across 17.2 innings for a 1.53 ERA.
Matthew Liberatore gets the ball for St. Louis, and he’s been in a tough run of his own with a 6.61 ERA over his last seven starts. He faced the Cubs on July 5 and allowed three earned runs on four hits in Chicago’s 6-4 win.
A few Cubs have handled Liberatore well in their careers. Pete Crow-Armstrong is 4-for-12 against him, Nico Hoerner is 4-for-12, and Michael Busch is 3-for-9.
Chicago also brings one of the league’s best numbers against left-handed pitching into the game. The Cubs rank in the top five in MLB in batting average at .263, on-base percentage at .355, slugging percentage at .431 and OPS at .786.
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