Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Cardinals Beat The Bucs And Jump Back Into 2nd Place

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

- Finding Positives Among The Negatives - Sonny Gray - Injury Updates On Steven Matz And Willson Contreras Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms… 🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOSTLCardinals?sid=YouTube Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More 🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnMLB Follow on Twitter/X: @JDSPORTSRADIO Follow the show on Twitter/X: @LO_Cardinals Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Tax Network USA Reduce your tax debt and get help from a team of licensed tax professionals call 1- 800-549-1000 or visit TNUSA.com/lockedon. LinkedIn Right now, you can try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at LinkedIn.com/LOCKEDON. Policygenius Check life insurance off your to do list in no time with Policygenius. Head to policygenius.com/lockedonmlb to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save. PrizePicks Go to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONMLB and use code lockedonmlb for a first deposit match up to $100! SupplyHouse SupplyHouse.com is the reliable way to get parts fast. Shop for your next plumbing, h-vac, or electrical job and get fast shipping from coast to coast. eBay Motors From brakes to exhaust kits and beyond, eBay Motors has over 122 million parts to keep your ride-or-die alive. With all the parts you need at the prices you want, it’s easy to bring home that big win. Keep your ride-or-die alive at EbayMotors.com. Eligible items only. Exclusions apply. eBay Guaranteed Fit only available to US customers. Gametime Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Make Every Moment More. Right now, NEW customers get TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS with any winning FIVE DOLLAR BET. That’s TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - with any winning FIVE DOLLAR BET!! Visit FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON to get started. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) #ForTheLou #stlcards #mlb #lockedoncardinals Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The St. Louis Cardinals put a bow on their series with the Pittsburgh Pirates with yet another tight win. It's been a season full of challenges, but it's also led to some production from some unexpected places. We're going to dig into all of that and more on today's episode of Locked on Cardinals. You are Locked on Cardinals, your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals fans. I'm J.D. Hafford and I'm a national radio sports anchor. born and raised in the loo in a lifetime cardinals. And I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter X at JD Sports Radio.

You can follow the podcast at LO underscore Cardinals. I do want to thank those of you who make Locked on Cardinals your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on YouTube if you haven't stopped by there to say hi yet. Make sure you do so. Stop on in. Like, subscribe, comment, interact with us, and hit that notification button so you know when the new episodes are posted.

This is a show serving Cardal Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bat. Today's episode of Lockdown Cardinals is brought to you by Tax Network USA. Did you know that it's never too late to resolve your tax issues with the IRS? Don't wait, reduce your tax debt,

and get help from a team of a licensed tax professionals by calling 1-800-549-1,000, or visit tnusa.com slash locked-on. The St. Louis Cardinals and close games go together like peanut butter and jelly, beer and pizza, hot dogs and baseball. It's just something that continues to happen again and again here in 2024. Match made in heaven. Close games in the St. Louis Cardinals.

The series against the Pirates, it was no different. And fortunately for the Cardinals, they were the ones who came out on top, the last two games by a combined three runs. They won four to two, and then they won on Thursday, four to three, Ablish Stadium, which pushed them back into second place in the NL Central. Flippity flop, as I wrote on the Lockdown Cardinals Twitter page today, because two days ago, they're in the basement, they're in last place. Everybody's like, yeah, last place Cardinals.

Now look, who's in second place again. That's how tight everything is in the NL Central. and they're right there in the wild card too. So just very, very tight all around the National League, really, but specifically in the Central where the Cardinals are, along with the Pirates, the Reds, Cubs, who they're going to be playing in Wrigley this weekend. According to Rob Raines at SCL Sportspage.com,

it was the 17th time in their last 21 games that the Cardinals game was decided by three or fewer runs. That was the final margin in 48 of the 67 games that they've already played this season. And in those 17 close games out of 21 total since May 20, the Cardinals have gone 11 and 6. So they're finding ways to win in these close games. But it's not doing any wonders for anxiety for fingernails. If you chew your fingernails,

like these games are, They're tough. They're tough to watch because a lot of times, it seems, the Cardinals will jump out to a lead and then they blow it and they make a game out of it with whoever they're playing. And then they have to come back and win it in the end. You know, nothing has come easy for this team this year, whether it's the injuries. And there's been plenty of them, Contreras, Edmund, Newpark, Carlson, Matt, Middleton, O'Brien.

I'm sure I'm leaving some names out of there. The offense, not hitting with runners in scoring position. defense goes into that two-week funk where they're making an error almost every game. Goldie and Aronado enduring some of the worst slumps of their careers, although in Thursday's game, Goldie had the big two-run Dinger. Nolan Aronado had a really nice overall series. Didn't do much at the plate on Thursday,

but he looked good at the plate the first two games. and defensively is starting to look like the Nolan Aronado that we've become accustomed to over the years, platinum award winning type of guy. But through all of this, through all of these issues, here they are floating around the 500 mark and continuing to hover in the wild card chatter. And I realize that all teams deal with stuff. It happens to everybody. It's a long season. nobody's immune to it. But you've got to admit that the Cardinals have dealt with a lot of stuff early on in the season.

And with the way the roster was built, there really wasn't a lot of room for error. You know, a lot of the stuff that's happening with them, they don't have depth for these kind of problems. Yet heading into Thursday's game against Pittsburgh, the Cardinals were 17 and 13 in their last 30, now 18 and 13, which was tied for second best. in the National League behind the Phillies and tied with the Brewers and the Giants for the best records in the National League over that time span. It's tied for the fourth best record in baseball over that time. Yankees number one, Phillies are number two, along with Baltimore and Cleveland. Then the Mariners are at number three. And then Cardinals, Milwaukee, Giants, and Astros at 17 to 13.

And I know it doesn't seem like they've been winning that much. Like oddly, it hasn't seemed that way. has it, but they have. And I think we should give them a little bit of credit. We should give them. We should give heaven forbid, give Ali Marmel any credit at all, but him and the coaching staff for dealing with all of these issues and all of these injuries and all these problems that have been going on. Like, where the hell is you out of here, Molina? What happened to that plan? I know that Mosella came out and said something about, you know, he's dealing with some family stuff. Okay. But, you know, that was supposed to be a big piece. of helping this team become better this year and not go through, you know, the, the,

the tribulation that was the 2023 season and then he has a better. We all know that the roster, this organization, it's got flaws. And realistically, no matter how much we wanted them to, they were never going to spend enough to pull them out of this rut of mediocrity in just one season. But because they didn't go and out and spend and do all these things like that, which is how some teams are able to fix flaws on their major league rosters. We have seen some progress from guys to go along with the bad stuff that we've had to put up with. And instead of focusing on negatives, because there's

plenty of them, I thought, for a lot, it'd be a breath of fresh air to talk about the positives. Is that okay, can we do that together today? All right, let's start with the outfield. Because that continues to be a carousel of players, right? Because of injuries, because of lack of production. And yet, you're seeing an outfield that's not that bad. Donnie's been holding it down in left field. Pretty darn well.

It's not a great outfielder by any means, but he gets the job done. And then at the plate, hit the go-ahead home run on Thursday against the Pirates. Fifth of the season. Rookie Michael Siani has been a revelation in centerfield. Gold glove caliber center fielder. Outs above average currently at six, which is tied for the third best for center fielder's in all of Major League Baseball. Not the NL Central, not just the National League, all of Major League Baseball.

He's ahead of former fan favorite Harrison Bader, who we know. was a great center fielder. Last year, Zeno Gold Glove winner, Brenton Doyle from the Rockies, superstar Julio Rodriguez, Byron Buxton, Kevin Kiermeyer, he's won a bunch of gold gloves. And this was a guy in Michael Ciani that most people didn't think was going to make team out of spring trading. If not for injuries to Tommy Edmund, Lars Neupar and Dylan Carlson, and a trade of Tyler O'Neill, but we kind of saw that one coming. But more because of those injuries before spring's training. Who is Michael Siani to you and to this organization?

He was like that fifth guy. He was going to ride the bench. Come on to play defense late in games. Give you a little speed. Got thrust into a starting role and has just been better than everybody else at playing center field. He's not a great hitter. You know that.

He knows that. But he gets down the bunts. He's good running around. the basis. Seven stolen base in Thursday's game. Like he does some of the little things that not a lot of the other guys on the team can do. And being that dude in center field that can track everything down has been unbelievable for this pitching staff.

Out's above average with all of his play in the outfield. If you count when he's played in left and right field as well, he's tied for second in the league at eight in his outs above average. You know, it seems like he's going to catch. to everything, even on the balls where he goes flying into the wall like a kamikaze. You know, there's balls that are landing over the wall like three and four rows back and he's jumping up and he's given the effort. A lot of respect for what Michael Ciani has done this year.

Alec Berluson has come to life. Most people rode him off after last year. Been one of the most consistent hitters on the team. He's batting 273, which is second on the team. Nine home runs, second on the team. Mason win. he's becoming a star. He's hitting 302 after Thursday's game where he's singled and tripled.

That 302 average not only leads the Cardinals, but it's eighth overall in the National League and third overall among short stops in all of baseball behind the Royals Bobby Witt, superstar, and the Dodgers-Mookie Betts, superstar. He's top five among all shortstops. in on base percentage. He's top 10 in slugging despite not being a power hitter. He's sixth in OPS in all of baseball.

That's better than the Brewers Willie Adamas, who we know is a very good hitter. Ellie de la Cruz, who Reds fans will tell you, is the god of baseball. Mason wins having a much better season than him. the only place that he's not is the stolen bases and the power, which Ellie is 6-5 and it's a huge man. O'Neill Cruz, the Pirates guy. OPS is better than his. Jeremy Pena from the Astros, Francisco Lindor, he's making a gazillion dollars. Dansby Swanson with the Cubs.

Bo Bouchet from the Blue Jays. Mason wins OPS is better than these guys. like we don't realize it, but you're seeing something very, very special at shortstop this year from Mason Wynn. With Contreras out, you've seen Yvonne Herrera become a very productive hitting catcher. He's been in 272,

three home runs and 16 RBIs and 50 games played. You're seeing Pedro Paz, getting experience, had that big two-out RBI single in the fourth inning today to push the Cardinals lead to three to nothing at the time. Not a great hitter, a more defensive catcher than he is an offensive catcher, but he's getting this experience. So it's not all doom and gloom in St. Louis, despite what many will tell you. Despite still being a game under 500, I know. Expectations is that it should be better than this, and I get that.

But if some of the names that are missing from this everyday lineup end up coming back and contributing, like they normally would and how we thought they would before the season started. Cardinals are kind of in a good position to certainly continue to contend for the wild card spots and perhaps the No central title. Can the Brewers continue to win the way they've won? I mean, it's still blowing people's minds that they have been able to be as good as they have been so far this season. Wilson's brother, William, a big piece of that. but there are folks out there who believes that the brewers will come back to Earth at some point,

that there's no way their pitching will be able to hang on and continue to do what they do. We'll see. I can tell you this much of it. Cardinals aren't going anywhere without their number one Sunny Gray being the Sunny Gray that we know he can be. And even though he's had a few off games, he's still been awfully good. So I want to talk more about Sunny Gray specifically next on Lockdown Cardinals. Price Picks is America's number one fantasy sports app with over 5 million active members. Get in on the daily action with your friends and become part of the prize picks community today.

So the NBA and Stanley Cup finals are still going on, and they mean more on prize picks, and so do the star players. You get boosted payouts on select basketball stars that you won't find anywhere else. Celtics are up three to nothing. This could be the end of this series very soon. Panthers, just one again, up three to nothing. So make sure you're getting in on the NBA and Stanley Cup finals action in these game fours before these series are over because we might see a sweep in both of them the way those two teams are playing. No better way to cash in on Cardinals baseball action. The prize picks.

I had your favorite players from the diamond, whether it's the Cardinals or any other teams. If you want to bet for the Cubs this weekend, I guess I won't shame on you. But it's up to you. It's your money. You know, you can add that stuff to your price-pix lineups all season long. You know, we're talking strikeouts, RBI's, home runs, stolen bases. Take your pick of more or less and then add them to your prize picks lineups today. Download the app today.

Use that code locked on MLB. First deposit match will get you up to $100. Use the knowledge that you learn from this show and other shows on the Lockdown Podcast Network. Use it. Use it for good. The good in your wallet or in your purse. Download the app to do. use the code lockton MLB for a first deposit matchup to $100.

Pick more, pick less. It's that easy with price picks. Life insurance is an important safety net for you and your family. The last thing you want is for something to happen to you or a loved one and just not be prepared. And that's where policy genius comes into play. It is the country's leading online insurance marketplace. And it makes choosing the right policy for your family, for yourself, easy and quick. Your time is precious.

That's why policy genius doesn't want to want to. waste your time. They make sure they are convenient and time saving. It helps you easily compare your options from America's top insurers in just a few clicks. Their award-winning agents, they'll even they'll walk you through it. All right? We don't know anything about insurance, do we? And if you do, good for you. Most of us don't. I know I don't. I have to talk to my people all the time. So their award-winning agents with policy genius can even walk you through the process step by step. And you can find life insurance policies that started just $292 per year for $1 million of coverage. One million dollars. Some options offer same-day approval and avoid unnecessary

medical exams. Your work life insurance policy, you may not know this, but it may not offer enough protection for your family's needs. And it may not come with you if you ever have to switch jobs. And policy genius, they don't have an incentive to recommend one insurer over another. so you can trust their guidance. They're just looking out for you. They've got thousands of five-star reviews on Google and trust pilot from customers who found the best fit for their needs, and you can too. Get peace of mind by finding the right life insurance with PolicyGenius. Head to PolicyGenius.com or click the link in the description to get your free life insurance quotes and see how much you could save.

That's PolicyGenius.com. Are you watching Fox Sports or ESPN on your TV all day and have to turn down the volume because they're they keep shouting. Then make the switch to lockdown sports today. It's a free 24-7 sports streaming channel program for you every day. To bring you the biggest stories without all the screaming, they bring you the can't-miss analysis, the opinions, the news. And it's streaming 24-7 on YouTube or the free Amazon Fire TV channels app,

all part of the Locktown Podcast Network, your team every day. So Wednesday night, it was good to see Sunny Gray back to looking like himself again. The Cardinals need their ace to be that guy that they could count. on to go out, give them the best chance to win each and every time he takes the ball and climbs up on that hill and starts throwing pitches. Now lately things have been a little bit more difficult for Sunny Gray. But on Wednesday, he had his A game working again. And it was, yes, kiss beautiful to watch him go to work. Had the early trouble in the first. And I know you were thinking it too. You're like, oh boy, not again. Not again. What's wrong with Sunny? First inning, second and

there are nobody out, but he gets out of it. He ends up finishing the game on Wednesday, seven innings, one run, four hits, nine strikeouts. Coming into Thursday's action, Sonny was eight and four, with a three.01 ERA, 1.03 whip, which is hilarious that it's like flipped. 91 strikeouts and hitters were batting just 202 against them. Those eight wins are tied for third in Major League Baseball, second in the National League. The RAA, 3.01, that's 20th in Major League Baseball. He's 8th in the National League. The 1.03 whip tied for 11th Major League Baseball, eighth in the National League, 91 strikeouts, 10th in Major League Baseball, fifth in the National League. 2-0-2 batting average against, 10th in Major League Baseball,

sixth in the National League. The guy is a top 10 pitcher in baseball. Argue with me about that. Argue with me. Because he's doing things that the only the best of the best do. And this is coming off a stretch of games where he hasn't been quite the same pitcher. We become accustomed to so far this year in a Cardinal uniform. And five starts in the month of May, sunny through just 28, two-thirds innings, which equals out to a little bit less than six innings per start, which we know when this rotation was put together, that was the idea. You get six. Bullpen will take care of the rest. That's the idea. 3.77 not awful, but a wee bit high from what you want from him, what you expected.

Opponents hit five of the six home runs. He's given up against him in the month of May, but they still only hit 206 against him, and he had 35 strikeouts. So it's not like they were lighting him up left and right. It just so happened that when they did hit him, they were going a long way and doing some damage. Six earned on seven hits and five innings against Milwaukee. Five earned on eight hits and six innings against the Angels. Those were the real culprits for the uglier numbers. in the month of May.

Yet the team was actually four and one in his start. So they were still winning. Then here early on in June, four runs on five hits with three walks, 10 strikeouts against Philly, arguably the best team in baseball. And then the start against Colorado, he was just off.

It happens. Four and two thirds innings, three runs, two hits, but four walks, which was, that was bad. And then the five Ks, and that game ends in a loss for the Cardinals.

He was visibly upset after the game against the Rocky, something we hadn't really seen yet since he's come to St. Louis. He's been pretty even keel in his interviews. And you can tell. Sunny Gray was not happy with himself, angry with himself, kind of the way Nolan Aronado gets. Like you can tell when Nolan is upset. never upset in anybody else, no matter what goes on with the Cardinals.

He's never bad at anybody else. But if he's the one who's not delivering, he gets on himself big time. And I'm picking that up from Sunny Gray as well. Sunny Gray expects sunny gray to do things better than everybody else. And when it's not working, when he's letting himself down and his team down, he doesn't like it. And I dig that about him. I think it's great. And so you just kind of had a feeling, at least I did, that he was going to come into that start against Pittsburgh on Wednesday, a little pissed off, a little pissed off, a little more focused, a little sharper,

and ready to redeem himself. And that's exactly what he did. And that's what you love about him. he's a competitor. You know, Lance Lynn, Lance Lynn in Thursday's game was cruising along and then has a crappy inning and is out of the game. But you see Lance Lynn out there very demonstrative when certain things don't go his way. When he gets mad at himself, you don't see him yelling at anybody else. He's not putting blame on anybody else. But when things don't go the way he wants them to go when it comes to his performance,

he gets pissed off. And I love it. I love it. I love that these guys take accountability for what they're doing on the field. They're not pointing fingers, not yelling at each other in the dugout, but they're like, I'm responsible for me, and I'm not doing my job. And you can see it. It upsets these guys.

And I think it'll make them a better ball club because of it. The starters, despite the short outing from Lance on Thursday, they were actually quite good during this homestand, specifically in the last five games. Rob Raines, again, STL Sportspage.com, points out, they posted a 2.15 ERA, just seven earned runs over 29 and the third innings, gave up 20 hits, walked eight, but struck out 33.

When you're talking about swing and mess and that being an important part of pitching in today's baseball, there you go. One of the starters that was originally part of the top five in the rotation. Currently, working his way back, he's trying to get back to the major leagues. We'll check in and give you the latest injury updates on one, Stephen Matt's, and more good news about Wilson Contreras's injury recovery. That's next for you here on Locked on Cardinals.

Here on Locked on Cardinals, we pride ourselves on getting you the latest news for your team, whether it's the off season, whether it's the MLB draft, which is coming up soon, spring training, playoffs, hopefully playoffs, right? It's year-round. You know what else is year-round? Collection season. And just because tax season is over, it doesn't mean the IRS is just going to stop coming after you for unfiled taxes.

They'll find you. The IRS can garnish your wages, levy your bank accounts, and even seize your property. So don't let the IRS target you. just don't let it happen. Let the license professionals and tax experts at Tax Network USA go to bad for you. I've mentioned it before. I've got multiple jobs all over the place. I'm all over the place, guys.

And this is on top of my duties as your Locked on Cardinals host. So I get different paychecks from different places, different areas of the country, which means a whole lot of paperwork and, tax forms and brackets and it's just it's wild it's wild it can be confusing so why not go with the experts who have over 14 years of experience at an a plus rating by the better business bureau tax network USA has saved their clients over a billion dollars in tax debt whether you owe taxes have complicated matters that require tax planning like me or finally hit that parlay this season and you need help correctly filing. Yes, when you win money during betting, you have to file for that stuff.

Just a heads up. Call 1-800-549-1,000 or visit TNUSA.com slash Locked-on. You can check out the link in this episode description down below and in the show notes. Why wait and keep stressing over all of it? Reduce your tax debt. Get help from a team of licensed tax professionals. Call 1-800-549-1,000 or visit TNUSA.com slash locked on. Locked on has launched the first ever National Sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube. It's now awesome available on Amazon Fire TV in the Free Fire TV channels app. Locked on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of Lockdown Plus or national shows which cover every league.

You can find Locked on Sports today now available on the Free Fire TV channels app. Making his second minor league rehab start, left-hander Stephen Matt's struggled through a lengthy second inning. largely because of his own errors. Stephen Matt's in trouble fielding his own position. Northwest Arkansas scored five times in the second inning. None of them were earned because of three errors in the inning. Two of them were on mats. In one and two thirds innings of work,

Matt's allowed three hits and a walk while striking out three, was supposed to throw 40 pitches, only got to 35 and was pulled during that long second inning. He's expected to make at least two more rehab starts to get him to 75, 80 pitches before he returns to the Cardinals. His next rehab start will be on Sunday in Springfield. And that should be a day after Riley O'Brien begins a rehab assignment with the club as well. He's scheduled to throw on Saturday.

So Riley O'Brien working his way back. Stephen Matt's working in his way back. Giovanni Gallego is still working his way back. The one that is surprising people a lot. By the way, Newt doing some rotational stuff, according to John Denton, Tommy Edmund, still taking batting practice by doing it from both sides. So slowly but surely, you're starting to see these guys get healthy. But Wilson Gertrish is the guy I want to focus on real quick. He continues to, I guess, marvel the doctors at the speed of his recovery from that gruesome broken forearm that he suffered back on May the 8th when J.D. Martinez tried to take his arm off.

with a swing. It wasn't J.D.'s fault, by the way. Yes, he's got a long back swing there, but it is, you know, Wilson's even said he goes, yeah, I was pretty close going back to the replay. Like, I was pretty close. I was up there quite a way. So original medical projections had Contreras missing 12 weeks for the injury,

meaning that he likely wouldn't be back behind the plate for the Cardinals until after the All-Star game, which is on July 16th. But today, Contreras, taking full BP in the cage. And according to John Denton, Contreras thinks he's going to be back with the club, playing every day like a normal person by July 2nd. So that's just a couple of weeks from now. That would be eight weeks, eight weeks after the injury, a month ahead of where the medical projections had him.

That's like crazy. I'm glad it's happening, and I'm sure they're going to take every precaution there is to make sure that the arm is where it needs to be. In fact, they posted a picture. Let me pull this up for, and I apologize for my audio people who aren't going to see this because this is only going to be on the YouTube page.

Let me get this loaded up, because I saw a picture of it. Here it is. There it is. Check out this scar. So there it is. Look, look that. He's got the tattoos there, but look at that scar. Looks like the seams of a baseball.

That's a big one. And I saw Denton wrote something that their players are starting to call him Wolverine because he's got the titanium in his forearm, which I'm very excited about the Deadpool Wolverine movie. coming out here real soon. But that's great news because Wilson Contreras, arguably the best hitter on this team, and they haven't had them since May 8th. Again, one of the reasons why if you get some of these dudes back

and they're anything like they're supposed to be, the Cardinals might be a very good team in the second half this season. Even when guys like Nato and Goldie aren't hitting quite what we expected. like they've built some depth here with these guys who have had to play. And these guys have played very, very good. Hopefully they'll continue to play very good this weekend because we off to Chicago. Got to play it regularly. Got to face the Cubs for the next three games.

I've only played them twice so far this year. Remember it was rainy weather at Bush Stadium, but they did beat them twice at the end of May. Seven to six, four to three were the final scores. Of course they were because both of these teams love playing in close games. They're the two top teams as far as like close games. They've played the most. Number one and number two, Cubs and Cardinals. Not against each other.

I'm saying overall in the entire season. So I would expect that these three games will be tight. Just the way these two teams like to play. So looking forward to it. Hopefully the Cardinals can continue to beat up on opponents, not name the Brewers in the division, because we know Milwaukee's been really, really tough against Cardinals, but they've had success against the Pirates, the Cubs and the Red so far.

Let's see if they can keep it going this weekend. Thanks for making Lockdown Cardinals. Your first listen every day. If you haven't already, please give us a follow on TwitterX at L0 underscore Cardinals and at JD Sports Radio, like, subscribe on YouTube. Again, we are getting very, very close to getting to 10,000 subscribers. Need your help. If you watch these episodes and you love them and you like them

and you want to see more of them. I want to make more of them for you. So like, subscribe on YouTube, and help our channel love for the Cardinals grow. You guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason. I will see you next time on Locked on Cardinals.