St. Louis Cardinals (42-53) vs. Chicago Cubs (44-50)
The Major League Baseball batting action goes on Thursday, July 20, 2023, with the St. Louis Cardinals taking on the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central showdown at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, and the first pitch is set for 8:05 PM ET.
St. Louis and Chicago open a four-game series at Wrigley Field. The Cardinals are 3-2 against the Cubs in 2023, taking two out of three road games from Chicago back in May.
Wednesday’s games have been excluded from the analysis, and the 42-53 St. Louis Cardinals hosted the Miami Marlins, looking to sweep a three-game set. Last Tuesday, the Cards outlasted the Marlins 5-2 in ten innings to extend their winning streak to four games. It was the Cardinals’ sixth win in eight games, and St. Louis was ten games behind the NL Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday.
The Cards are slashing an excellent .289/.365/.476 with 34 extra-base hits and 21 home runs across 523 at-bats in July. On the pitching side of things, the Cardinals have recorded a 4.22 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, and .261 batting average against through 134.1 innings of work so far this month.
Steven Matz will toe the rubber T hursday in Chicago and meet the Cubs for the second time this season. He tossed 3.1 scoreless innings in relief in a heavy 9-1 home loss to the Cubbies on June 24. Matz is 0-7 with a 4.86 ERA, 1.51 WHIP, and 73/28 K/BB ratio in 2023, and the 32-year-old left-hander surrendered four earned runs on four hits and three walks across 4.1 frames in a no-decision against the Washington Nationals last Saturday.