Cubs vs Cardinals: Pallante Takes The Series Finale At Busch

Two Up, One Back, One To Play

The first two nights looked like a mismatch. Chicago took the opener 7-3 on Monday and then poured it on Tuesday, a 10-2 blowout that fit the standings, a 61-47 club six games back of Milwaukee pounding a 54-54 team that has lost seven of its last ten. Then Wednesday happened, and St. Louis did what fading teams are not supposed to do against contenders, grinding out a 3-2 win to keep the series alive heading into the finale.

So the finale carries more weight than a July afternoon between rivals usually does. The Cubs are chasing a Brewers club that has run away to 67-41, and a 3-1 series win over a divisional opponent is exactly the kind of result a chase demands, while dropping the last two after being up 2-0 would sting. For St. Louis, this series is the season in miniature: capable of playing anyone close at Busch, not consistent enough to string it together, and now holding a chance to salvage a split of a series it trailed from the first night.

The Pitching Matchup

Andre Pallante is the reason the market makes St. Louis a slight favorite despite the records. He is 11-6 with a 3.77 ERA across 112.1 innings, and his last start was the best of his season, seven shutout innings against Cincinnati on July 25 with two hits allowed, one walk and eight strikeouts. The bounce-back matters because his July had been rocky before that, six earned runs against Milwaukee on July 9 and three more against Arizona on July 19. When Pallante is commanding the bottom of the zone the way he did against the Reds, he looks like a frontline arm.

Javier Assad gives Chicago a quieter kind of confidence. He is 6-1 with a 3.86 ERA and a 1.12 WHIP, but he has made only eight starts this season, and the Cubs have handled his workload carefully, three innings against Pittsburgh on July 25, a single inning against Detroit on July 20 before that. He has not been stretched past five innings in July, which puts Chicago's bullpen on notice for an early entrance in a day game after a night game, exactly the situation where relief depth gets tested.

Two Very Different Julys

Chicago's offense has been the engine all season, averaging 5.19 runs per game with 134 home runs and a .248 team average, and Tuesday's ten-run night was that group at full throttle. The road has not been a problem either, the Cubs are 31-25 away from Wrigley. The concern is more recent and more specific: Chicago has dropped two one-run games inside the past week, an 8-7 loss in Pittsburgh on July 26 and Wednesday's 3-2 loss, games a division chaser cannot keep giving away.

St. Louis is 3-7 over its last ten, and the offense is the reason, a .239 team average and 4.39 runs per game that rank near the bottom of the league. But the home split tells a stranger story: the Cardinals are 28-31 at Busch Stadium, better than their recent form suggests, and 26-23 on the road. Wednesday's 3-2 win was a template, keep the game close, lean on the bullpen, and let a quality start shorten the night. With Pallante rolling, that template is entirely repeatable in the finale.

Injury Report & Lineup Notes

Chicago Cubs

Bullpen Rehab Watch

Left-hander Hoby Milner (abdomen) began a rehab assignment at Triple-A Iowa on Wednesday and threw a scoreless inning. Edward Cabrera (hamstring) starts his own rehab assignment Friday, and Daniel Palencia (elbow) is scheduled for a bullpen session. None of the three is available Thursday, which thins the relief options behind Assad's short outings.

St. Louis Cardinals

Missing Pieces

Left-handed reliever JoJo Romero is on the 15-day injured list with appendicitis and is not expected back at first eligibility. Infielder Ramon Urias remains out after his rehab assignment was paused when he was hit on the elbow by a pitch at Triple-A. The late-inning left-handed matchup weapon Romero provides is the bigger absence against Chicago's lineup.

Advanced Stats & Style Profile

The stylistic contrast is the whole game. Chicago scores in bunches and strikes out 931 times doing it; St. Louis has the lowest-strikeout lineup profile of the two at 829, but converts that contact into far fewer runs. Pallante's contact-heavy profile, 83 strikeouts across 112.1 innings, against a Cubs lineup with real power, and Assad's careful workload against a lower-scoring home side, gives the afternoon two entirely different ways to break open.

Keys To The Game

Cubs Keys

Make Pallante work early. His two rough July starts, six earned runs against Milwaukee and three against Arizona, both featured early trouble. Chicago has scored 17 runs in its two wins in this series; getting Pallante's pitch count up by the fourth puts this game back in the hands of a bullpen missing Romero.

Cardinals Keys

Attack the middle innings. Assad has not pitched past the fifth all month, so the game will pass to Chicago's relievers early in a day game after a night game. St. Louis won Wednesday by keeping it close late; the same script starts with cashing in whenever Assad leaves.

Final Thoughts

A 61-47 team is a small underdog to a 54-54 team, and the price is about one man. Pallante coming off seven shutout innings, at home, in a series finale, is worth that much respect from the market. The counterweight is that Chicago's lineup is simply better than anything Cincinnati showed him last Saturday, and Assad, for all his workload limits, has taken just one loss all season. The bullpen math leans St. Louis late if it is close, and the lineup math leans Chicago early if it is not. For the rest of Thursday's slate, see the full MLB Game Previews hub.