The St. Louis Cardinals look to remain on a roll when they resume their weekend series with the Washington Nationals on Saturday night at Busch Stadium.
The Cardinals have won nine of their last 11 games after opening the series on Friday with a decisive 12-2 win over the Nationals. The series-opening win lowered the Cards' magic number for clinching a coveted NL Wild Card spot to three.
St. Louis expects to start right-hander Kyle Lohse (16-3, 2.77 ERA) on the mound. While Lohse has been a consistently solid starter all season for St. Louis, he did get knocked around a bit in his only start against Washington on September 1st. The Cards won the game 10-9 but Lohse gave up nine hits and five earned runs in five and two-thirds innings.
The Nationals will counter with Jordan Zimmermann (12-8, 2.90 ERA) on the hill. The right-hander is 3-0 in his last four starts but fared worse than Lohse in that September first slugfest. Zimmerman was tagged by St. Louits for eight earned run on eight hits, lasting only three and two-thirds innings.
The game is scheduled to start at 6:15 p.m. CT and will be televised on Fox Sports Midwest.