The St. Louis Cardinals hope to tighten the National League Central race while facing the first-place Chicago Cubs seven times in a span of 14 days.
They will continue that quest Tuesday night when they host Chicago in the second game of a four-game series at Busch Stadium. The teams will play a three-game series at Wrigley Field July 4-6.
The Cardinals rolled to an 8-2 victory Monday night while climbing to within 3 1/2 games of the Cubs. They also moved into a tie with the Milwaukee Brewers for second place in the division.
“When you look at it, you want to control your own destiny sooner than later,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “The only way to do that is one game at a time. We took the first one, we’ll focus on tomorrow and try to do the same.”
The Cardinals have won six of their last seven games after recently snapping a six-game losing streak.
Production from left-handed hitters Alec Burleson (.364, .996 OPS, 16 RBIs in June), Lars Nootbaar (6-for-19, two homers, five RBIs in his last five games), and Nolan Gorman (two doubles, two homers, six RBIs last nine games) helped fuel this surge.
Burleson, Nootbaar, Gorman and Brendan Donovan hit two-run homers in the victory Monday night. The Cardinals hit just 74 homers in their first 78 games this season.
“The lefties did a really nice job there with the homers,” Marmol said. “But all the way through I liked our approach . . . some powerful swings, some homers, loved every second of it.”
The Cardinals will start right-hander Michael McGreevy (1-1, 2.70 ERA), who held the Chicago White Sox to one run on three hits in five innings in his most recent start last Thursday.
McGreevy, who has spent most of this season at Triple-A Memphis, will make his first career start against the Cubs.
The Cubs have allowed 46 runs while losing four of their last five games. They will look to starting pitcher Jameson Taillon (7-4, 3.84) on Tuesday to get them back on track.
Last Thursday, Taillon allowed five runs on eight hits, including two homers, in four innings of an 8-7 home loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.
“He just didn’t have his best day,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “Just left some pitches kind of middle-ish of the plate, some breaking balls up.”
Taillon will look to reestablish his command and his feel for breaking pitches against the Cardinals. He never settled in against the Brewers.
“Just didn’t do a good job of throwing first-pitch strikes, so that’s something I feel I’m usually pretty good at,” Taillon said. “I felt that made me more one-dimensional than usual, which makes it tough.”
He also added, “(I) didn’t throw any good sliders today.”
Taillon is 6-2 with a 3.33 ERA in 16 career starts against the Cardinals.
The Cubs promoted pitcher Michael Fullmer from Triple-A Iowa ahead of this series and demoted pitcher Nate Pearson. Fullmer appeared in relief Monday night, giving up two hits over two scoreless innings.