Series Preview: @St. Louis Cardinals

After the most tumultuous 1-1 series tie in Marlins history, the Fish move on to a road trip to the Midwest, beginning in St. Louis to face the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards recently relinquished their division lead to the Cincinnati Reds, but they also have Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday, and Adam Wainright coming up this series, so we’ll need to be careful.

Florida Marlins @ St. Louis Cardinals (23-17), May 19-20, Games 41-42

NL East Standings

Stadium: Busch Stadium III
Five-year Run PF*: 0.97
Five-year HR PF*: 0.92
Stadium Dimensions:
Left Field: 336 ft.
Left-Center: 375
Center Field: 400
Right-Center: 375
Right Field: 335

*Five-year regressed park factors provided by Patriot here

Projected Pitching Matchups

May 19: Anibal Sanchez vs. Jaime Garcia
May 20: Nate Robertson vs. Adam Wainright

ZiPS In-Season Projections

Projected Lineup

Notes

– The Marlins may be tinkering with again leaving Cameron Maybin in the eighth spot and moving Gaby Sanchez up the order. The good news is that Sanchez projects pretty well and has also hit well, so it seems like a good move. Lately, Maybin has been hitting a little better, but the concerns are still there; without home runs and/or excessive walk rates, it’ll be difficult for Maybin to excel with his kind of strikeout rates.

– Adam Wainright will pitch in this series. The last time he threw against us, Dan Uggla hit a home run and put us up 2-1, and that was all we needed. I await much worse results with Nate Robertson pitching against him, however.

– I’m a little shocked at Anibal Sanchez’ updated projections. I don’t know what he’s doing to suppress home runs, but I don’t think it will stick. He’s not a ground ball guy. His lack of strikeouts (not including his last excellent start) have also been troubling.

Bold Prediction: Marlins win zero of two games.