![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/hiroki-kuroda-dodgers-90.jpg\")
<\/a>St. Louis has won three of four games and compiled a .356 batting average with 15 doubles, nine homers and 37 runs over that span.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re not going to score 15 runs every night, but we\u2019re swinging the bats like we are capable of,\u201d said outfielder Lance Berkman.\u00a0 \u201cWe have the potential to have an explosive offense.\u201d\u00a0 Star first baseman Albert Pujols also joined into the fun in the desert, rattling off six hits in his final nine at-bats in the series against the Diamondbacks, after seeing his average dip to .128 at one point.\u00a0 St. Louis is 3-3 in road games this year and at night.<\/p>\n
Cardinals starting pitcher Jaime Garcia has been dynamite early in the season and has struck out 18 in 15 innings while being backed by just two runs in each game.\u00a0 \u201cThe way I see it is, I went home and had a great offseason, worked as hard as a I could and got ready,\u201d Garcia commented.\u00a0 \u201cSpring Training I worked really hard too.\u00a0 The way I see it, it\u2019s paying off, the hard work.\u201d\u00a0 The left-hander also got off to a hot start last year, going 4-2 with a 1.14 ERA through his first nine starts of the 2010 campaign.\u00a0 He struggled in his only appearance against the Dodgers, throwing 82 pitches in 3 1\/3 innings, allowing two runs and eight hits.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles has dropped three of its last four games and fell 4-3 at San Francisco on Wednesday.\u00a0 \u201cWe were pretty much in every game,\u201d manager Don Mattingly said of his 6-6 team.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re OK.\u201d\u00a0 The Dodgers ran their record to 0-6 when trailing after six innings and Mattingly was asked if his depleted current roster makes catchup a difficult game to play.\u00a0 \u201cNot really, no, not really,\u201d he said.\u00a0 The offense will need to rely on the bat of outfielder Andre Ethier in this series, who has a .447 average with one homer and five RBIs in his past 12 home meetings with St. Louis.\u00a0 Los Angeles is 4-1 versus left-handed starters this year.<\/p>\n
Dodgers starting pitcher Hiroki Kuroda is off to his best start in four seasons in the majors and threw a gem in a 4-0 win at San Diego on Saturday.\u00a0 The right-hander has a 1.42 ERA and 19 strikeouts in 19 innings over three starts against the Cardinals, but is 0-1 due to getting just three total runs of support over that span.\u00a0 Kuroda has received 11 runs of support in his two outings this year, compiling a perfect 2-0 mark and 1.72 ERA.<\/p>\n
Bettors will likely back the Dodgers due to their 16-5 record in Kuroda\u2019s last 21 starts versus the National League Central, while the Cardinals are 0-5 in their last five games in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The St. Louis Cardinals are coming off an impressive 15-5 road victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks and now get set to face off against another National League West club St. Louis Cardinals at Los Angeles Dodgers St. Louis has won three of four games and compiled a .356 batting average with 15 doubles, nine homers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[196,4855,1157,1754,429,841],"class_list":["post-14912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-albert-pujols","tag-andre-ethier","tag-hiroki-kuroda","tag-jaime-garcia","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14913,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14912\/revisions\/14913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}