St. Louis Cardinals

Cardinals searching for success over division foe Pirates

Published Jun. 23, 2017 7:00 a.m. ET

If the Pittsburgh Pirates or St. Louis Cardinals were in any other division but the National League Central, they might already be cast in the role of seller at next month's trading deadline.

But at least this year, location is everything. The Pirates (33-40) and Cardinals (33-38) start a weekend series Friday night at Busch Stadium still in contention instead of staring at an insurmountable deficit.

St. Louis is only five games behind first-place Milwaukee, while Pittsburgh is six games in arrears of the Brewers. It arrives in town fresh off a four-game split at Milwaukee that the Pirates could have turned into a series victory.

After winning the series' first two games, they coughed up a late lead Wednesday night in a 4-3 defeat, then lost the series finale Thursday 4-2.

"I'm not going, 'Wow, we can't play with these guys.' We can play with them and we have played with them," Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle said. "We just have got to continue to work hard to get a little bit better. We had a chance to do more. We didn't."

The Pirates will try to conquer a place that hasn't been kind to them lately. They have lost their last seven games under the Gateway Arch, including three in a mid-April series. All three games were 2-1 finals.

That's been a problem for both teams this year -- the lack of consistent offense. While the Cardinals scored 38 runs in the first five games of a road trip to Baltimore and Philadelphia, they cooled off Thursday, getting shut down by the Phillies' Aaron Nola in a 5-1 setback.

The result was somewhat aggravating to manager Mike Matheny, who said he felt his team had a chance for a sweep with Carlos Martinez taking the mound. Martinez turned in a quality start, allowing two earned runs over six innings, but Nola was simply better.

"We've had a couple of real nice efforts, but you put Carlos on the mound, you expect to build on some of the same things you've seen offensively," Matheny said.

Veteran right-hander Adam Wainwright (7-5, 5.75) is hoping a return to familiar environs enables him to reverse a recent trend of brutal outings. Wainwright is 5-1 with a 2.88 ERA in seven home starts.

In his last two road starts, Wainwright has been eviscerated for 18 earned runs in 5 1/3 innings, bloating his ERA nearly two full runs. Wainwright is 13-7 with a 4.22 ERA in 33 career games, 28 of them starts, against Pittsburgh.

Jameson Taillon (3-2, 3.38) takes the ball for the third time since returning to the Pirates after undergoing surgery for testicular cancer last month. After blanking Colorado for five innings in a win June 12, Taillon gave up eight hits and four runs Sunday in five innings of a 7-1 defeat against the Chicago Cubs.

Taillon has started once in his career against St. Louis, yielding six hits and two runs in five innings of a no-decision start last year.