The St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates are playing on the MLB schedule on Friday as they open an NL central series and the game will stream live from PNC Park at 7:05 pm ET and has a heated rivalry after both made the playoffs last season and the Cards have Shelby Miller pitching against youngster Gerrit Cole for Pitt.
The Cardinals made it to the World Series last season and the Pirates made the playoffs for the first time in two decades and that adds a nice little layer to this matchup as they battle on Friday night. The Pirates have stated off the season well and they are 2-1 and so are the Cardinals and now these two teams get the chance to get things going early after the battles last season and they have two of the top young starters in the league on the mound for the game. Cole comes in after going 10-7 with a 3.22 ERA in 19 starts last year, while Miller was even better with a 15-9 record and while he went 0-4 against the Pirates, he is hoping for a better result in 2014.
Pittsburgh second baseman Neil Walker has success against Miller and he comes in after leading his team to a walk off win earlier in the week and now he will get the chance to face him again. The Cardinals and the Pirates played a five game series in the NLDS and NL MVP Andrew McCutchen did not have a great series, but he is looking to follow up last season's success with another playoff appearance. The Cardinals started off the season slow hitting the ball, scoring just one run over the first two games, but they broke out against the Reds in the final game of their set and they ended up scoring seven runs and getting the win. Last season the two teams split the matchups between each other including the playoffs, but the Pirates had a winning record at home and now they get the first crack at keeping that up.
Lance Lynn got the win for the Cardinals in the finale against the Reds and Trevor Rosenthal got his second save already and Homer Bailey was hit with the loss and now Joe Kelly will get the start after Shelby Miller, while Francisco Liriano will go for the Pirates after Cole. The two teams should be having another close battle in the division with the Reds this season, while the Brewers have a chance to be okay and the Cubbies are just the Cubs, so yeah on that one. The Pirates lost to the Cubs on Thursday and now the two teams face off in Pitt and they will pick things up again later in April and that will be in Cincy.
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