Wednesday is the middle game of a three-game set from Coors Field as the St Louis Cardinals take on the Colorado Rockies. While the Rockies are toast in terms of the playoffs, the Cardinals are in the driver’s seat of the National League Central.
They hold a four-game lead coming into this game and have been red-hot, winning seven of their last 10 games. The Cards have been on such a roll, that they have not lost a series since the beginning of August to the LA Dodgers. If St Louis wants to keep its foot on the gas in the Central, winning games against pretty bad teams like Colorado is the way to do it.
Probable Pitchers
For the Cardinals, Dakota Hudson will get the ball and make his 29th start of the season. Hudson has been one of the most important pieces in this St Louis run, winning 15 games so far with an ERA of just 3.40 in his second major league season.
Hudson’s last five starts have been everything you could have dreamed of and more as a Cardinal fan. He has gone a perfect 5-0 since Aug. 14, with a miniscule 1.10 earned run average. In fact, in four of those games, he didn’t even give up a run. The only runs that came in that stretch of over 32 innings were in his start against the Reds on Aug. 31.
Antonio Senzatela will make his 22nd start for the Rockies in what has been an abysmal year. He is 8-10 with an earned run average of 7.19. Pretty much every peripheral on Senzatela is terrible. His K/9 is 5.00, his BB/9 is 4.30, his HR/FB% is 17.6, and his WHIP is 1.79.
What is remarkable about that, other than how bad those stats are, is that he started the season just fine. He started the first half solid, making six starts where he gave up two earned runs or less. However, since then he has been one of, if not the worst starter in all of baseball. His ERA in the second half is 17.08. His opponents batting average in the second half is a whopping .430 with a slugging percentage of .671.
Batter To Watch
Kolten Wong is having the best season of his career in 2019. He’s on pace to beat all his previous career highs in home runs, RBI and batting average. He’s currently batting .286 with 10 and 55, needing only 11 and 61 to match his career bests. He’s been on quite the tear of late, getting hits in 11 of his last 13 games.
The reason to watch for him in this one, though, is the pitcher. Senzatela is terrible against left-handed batting. That side of the plate is mashing his fastball to the tune of a .371 batting average this season. With the game being at Coors, don’t be surprised to see Wong put one over the fence.
The Pick
This one isn’t hard. What would be hard is to find a worse pitcher than Senzatela. Take the Cardinals.
