St. Louis Cardinals face a trap series against the Chicago White Sox

03/05/2024 20:30

a series preview

The St. Louis Cardinals are set to take on the Chicago White Sox for three games this weekend. I'll be honest: I hadn't really been aware of how the White Sox season had been going until I began writing this. So seeing the Baseball Reference game results first thing was a bit of a surprise

So I guess it isn't going very well. The White Sox are 6-25 with a run differential of 89 runs scored to 173 runs allowed. As a team they rank last in the league with a 73 wRC+ and last in FIP with 4.91. Largely because of his defense, the best player for the White Sox has been Paul DeJong. Gavin Sheets has been the best at the plate with a 133 wRC+ in 105 plate appearances. Tommy Pham has been off to a hot start; in his first six games of the season he is slashing .375/.375/.583 for a 174 wRC+ in 24 plate appearances.

The Cardinals face righty Brad Keller on Friday evening. Keller has less than two innings pitched in 2024. For his career he has a 4.26 ERA and 4.32 FIP. In 2023 he threw a four-seamer, slider, curveball, changeup, and sinker. In past seasons his sinker and slider appeared to be his most valuable pitches, at least per Baseball Savant's Run Value, but he had been decreasing the usages of those pitches through the years. In the one appearance he made in 2024 in relief he threw his slider for over 45% of his pitches. Perhaps that is an approach he will carry over into his start as well.

Erick Fedde will take the mound Saturday. He has just under 35 innings pitched this season and has been quite good so far. His ERA is at 2.60, though his FIP is at 4.00, but he has also struck out 27.5% of hitters he has faced while only walking 6.3%. It is is obviously extremely early in the season, but those are both career numbers for Fedde by a lot. To Fedde's credit, after missing all of 2023 he seems to have made some changes. In 2022 he mostly threw a sinker, curveball, and cutter. In 2024 he has ditched the curveball completely in favor of a sweeper and he has also added a splitfinger. His sinker location is also a lot better, hitting the outer part of the plate to a righty instead of the inner-middle part.

A lefthander and the White Sox best pitcher by fWAR so far this season faces the Cardinals for the series finale game on Sunday. Garrett Crochet has a team-leading 0.6 fWAR, largely due to a 32.9% K rate against a 6.3% walk rate. So far that has amounted to a 5.97 FIP, the result of a string of three poor outings in a row on April 13, 19, and 24 where he surrendered 17 earned runs in less than 12 innings. Of the three pitchers, he is the one that relies on his fastball the most. He throws a four-seamer for over half his pitches at just over 96 mph on average. He secondary pitches are a slider and cutter, and he occasionally throws in a changeup. The cutter is a new addition to his arsenal and it seems to be a way to add another look off his fastball.

So that's about what the Cardinals are up against. The White Sox are likely hungry for some wins, so while they haven't been playing well so far, I think it would be a mistake to take them lightly, especially after the shot in the arm Tommy Pham's arrival seems to have brought. The team is 3-3 in games Pham has appeared in. As you recall, they have six wins for the entire season. The matchups for Saturday and Sunday have me worried with the Cardinals offensive struggles this season. I mentioned the White Sox were last in team wRC+, but the Cardinals are not much ahead of them at 27 with an 86 wRC+. That's why it is a trap series. You think the Cardinals should probably win 2 games when you examine the teams at first glance, but looking deeper, there are a lot of pitfalls they could fall in. It is like getting into a fight with your younger sibling: if you win, well of course you did, you are the jerk that fought your younger sibling, but if you loose, then you are the weenie that couldn't even beat your younger sibling. It's a trap.

It is a new month. Let's see if the Cardinals can get off to a good start, eh?

Matchups:

Friday, May 3 at 7:15 pm CT: Brad Keller vs. Sonny Gray
Saturday, May 4 at 1:15 pm CT: Erick Fedde vs. Lance Lynn
Sunday, May 5 at 1:15 pm CT: Garrett Crochet vs. TBD