![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Albert-Pujols-cardinals-788.jpg\")
<\/a>Chicago has started its 10-game homestand with four consecutive losses after a 9-2 loss to St. Louis last night.\u00a0 The Cubs have now dropped to a dismal 15-28 against division opponents this year, including a 1-6 mark against their biggest rival.\u00a0 The series has been incredibly lopsided this year, as the club has been outscored 49-26 in the seven meetings.\u00a0 Offensively, third baseman Aramis Ramirez has cooled off dramatically, collecting just two hits in 24 at-bats.\u00a0 He is still leading the team with nine home runs and 23 RBI in July.\u00a0 Chicago is 6-21 in its last 27 tries as a road underdog and 2-7 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Cubs starting pitcher Rodrigo Lopez is 2-2 with a 3.49 ERA in 15 appearances (five starts) this season and is coming off a short relief appearance on July 24.\u00a0 He grabbed two outs in a Chicago 5-4 home win over the Astros in that particular outing, which followed a 6-1 victory in a previous start over Philadelphia.\u00a0 The right-hander is making his eighth appearance (second start) on the road, entering with an 0-1 mark and 3.00 ERA, registering four strikeouts in 12 frames.\u00a0 In seven career outings (five starts) versus the Cardinals, Lopez has a losing 2-3 record and 5.63 ERA, including an 0-1 mark and 9.00 ERA in two career outings in relief at Busch Stadium.<\/p>\n
St. Louis entered this series two games back in the NL Central race and has now won five consecutive games against Chicago.\u00a0 The Cardinals were led offensively by third baseman David Freese, who drove in three runs with his sixth home run of the season, but first baseman Albert Pujols also pitched in with a 2 for 5 night.\u00a0 One of his hits was his 2,000th of his career, becoming only the fourth player in franchise history to accomplish that feat.\u00a0 St. Louis is 28-23 at home this season and 41-36 when facing right-handed starters.<\/p>\n
Cardinals starting pitcher Kyle Lohse is 8-7 with a 3.46 ERA in 20 starts this season and will be aiming to snap a three-game losing streak.\u00a0 The right-hander picked up a no-decision in his latest effort, allowing two runs and four hits in five frames in a 4-3 road loss to the Pirates.\u00a0 Lohse has compiled a losing 2-4 mark and 3.86 ERA in eight home outings, managing to strike out just 27 batters in 58 1\/3 frames.\u00a0 The 32-year-old will be facing the rival Cubs for the 12th time in his career, bringing in a 1-4 record and 6.51 ERA.\u00a0 He has also tallied a 2-3 record and 3.14 ERA in eight starts versus division opponents this year.<\/p>\n
Bettors may elect to back the Cubs due to their even 31-31 record when following a loss, while the Cardinals are 4-9 in Lohse\u2019s last 13 Saturday starts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals continue a three-game series in the National League Central Saturday afternoon at Busch Stadium Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals Chicago has started its 10-game homestand with four consecutive losses after a 9-2 loss to St. Louis last night.\u00a0 The Cubs have now dropped to a dismal 15-28 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[196,2197,1757,180,1556,2324,1960,841],"class_list":["post-16691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-albert-pujols","tag-aramis-ramirez","tag-busch-stadium","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-kyle-lohse","tag-national-league-central","tag-rodrigo-lopez","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16691","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=16691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16692,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16691\/revisions\/16692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}