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The La Russa Heartbreakometer
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Lance Lynn
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Jhoulys Chacin
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| Matt Carpenter - 3B | Ender Inciarte - RF |
| Tommy Pham - CF | A.J. Pollock - CF |
| Jhonny Peralta - SS | Paul Goldschmidt - 1B |
| Jason Heyward - RF | David Peralta - LF |
| Yadier Molina - C | Welington Castillo - C |
| Stephen Piscotty - LF | Jake Lamb - 3B |
| Mark Reynolds - 1B | Aaron Hill - 2B |
| Greg Garcia - 2B | Chris Owings - SS |
| Lance Lynn - RHP | Jhoulys Chacin - RHP |
Important note. A later than usual start here, the game not getting under way at the normal 6:40pm time, because it's being covered on ESPN 2. Local viewers will be able to see it on Fox Sports Arizona as usual.
Interesting choice to go with Chacin for the start, and I think the late announcement of the switch was to help throw a spanner into the Cardinals' scouting plans. With someone who hasn't thrown in the majors this year, it's unlikely they will have a great deal of information on his current form. None of the Cardinals are exactly over-familiar with him, nobody having more than ten at-bats against Chacin, and with collective numbers of .205/.295/.308, they haven't done that well. Heyward and Molina have both gone 3-for-10, and the former has the only homer off Chacin, so the middle of the order might merit some caution.
Looks like we have gone for as offensively-minded a line-up tonight as possible, with Owings replacing Nick Ahmed at short. Pollock returns after getting a day-off yesterday, and we hope he can continue his hot streak We may have to buy our own dinners this week, with free tacos potentially being in short supply: the Cardinals have held their opponents to two runs or fewer more often than not, in 67 of the 123 games they have played this season, as befits the team with the lowest ERA in the National League. Taking advantage of whatever opportunities present themselves is likely key, since we probably won't get many of them.
I'm looking forward to this series: when we played St. Louis earlier in the year, results certainly didn't go the way expected, but the games were close, Arizona losing the three games by a total of four runs. We managed only nine runs over 28 innings in that series, so yeah - it's probably going to be a case of pitching well and playing small ball. Our running game has been burning up the bases of late, with eight stolen bases over the series in Cincinnati. It wouldn't surprise me if that's also the case for the next few days at Chase, as we look to make things happen.