ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The St. Louis Cardinals have overcome a lot in 2020 thus far. But they've got a lot of overachieving left to do and the first step begins at 4:08 p.m. CT on Wednesday.
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Here are a few things you need to know before the first-round playoff action against the San Diego Padres begins:
Familiar foes:
There are a number of former St. Louis Cardinals players on the Padres roster. But the two players you'll see the most of are outfielder Tommy Pham and closer Trevor Rosenthal.
Pham has been used mainly as the designated hitter, but has made more starts in left field since coming off a hand injury earlier this month. He's batting .211 with three home runs and a dozen RBI this season.
Rosenthal was traded from the Royals at the deadline this year and has yet to allow an earned run in 10 innings of work for the Padres. His command has been excellent, as he's walked just one batter and struck out 38 in those 10 innings.
Cardinals fans will also recognize a couple other faces in the opposing dugout, including infielder Greg Garcia and associated manager Skip Schumaker.
St. Louis owns San Diego in playoffs
The last time St. Louis faced San Diego in October was 2006 – the year St. Louis won its 10th World Series.
Fourteen years later, this will be the fourth postseason series between St. Louis and San Diego (1996, 2005, 2006). And each time St. Louis has won.
Molina to set another milestone
When Yadier Molina – in all likelihood – plays in both games 1 and 2 of this series, he will hit 100 career postseason games. That will move him up to sixth all time for the most playoff games in MLB history.
His 98 are behind Derek Jeter (158) Jorge Posada (125), Bernie Williams (121), David Justice (112), Manny Ramirez (111) and Tino Martinez (99).
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Cardinals will save Flaherty for possible game 3
As Cardinals manager Mike Shildt likes to say, "it's written in pencil, not pen," but he's said he'll go with starters Kwang Hyun Kim in game 1 and Adam Wainwright in game 2 in the best-of-three series. And Jack Flaherty is being held for the possible final start in the best-of-three series.
Flaherty came into the 2020 season as the undisputed ace who was thought to be a Cy Young Award candidate, but then COVID happened. He's had six starts allowing just two or fewer runs this season and has been that dominant ace we expected. But he's also had a three-inning, nine-run performance that came earlier this month.
St. Louis has the second-worst betting odds to win World Series
The Cardinals are last in all of baseball in home runs this year. They're second-to-last in the NL with a .370 slugging percentage. They're first-round opponent also won more games (37) than any team in the NL expect for the Dodgers.
And Vegas odds don't give St. Louis much of a shot. The Cardinals are tied for the second-worst odd to win the World Series, according to Draft Kings. They're +3300 odds match the Marlins and Brewers, and are better only than the Blue Jays.
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