St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Kyle Gibson will aim to carry last season’s success against the host Toronto Blue Jays into the middle encounter of a three-game series on Saturday afternoon.
He will face right-hander Jose Berrios, who will try to win his seventh consecutive start and increase his career-best win total.
The Cardinals (74-73) will need to find timely hitting if they are to take advantage of good pitching. They went 2-for-19 with runners in scoring position and stranded 12 on Friday while falling 4-3 to the Blue Jays in 11 innings in the series opener.
Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol recognized that Toronto (70-78) made some good defensive plays, but added, “We had opportunities. … You don’t deserve to win when you go 2-for-19 with runners in scoring position.”
Gibson (8-6, 4.20 ERA) went 3-0 with a 2.14 ERA in three starts against the Blue Jays last season as a member of the Baltimore Orioles. The Cardinals signed him as a free agent in the offseason.
Gibson is 8-2 with a 4.15 ERA in 14 career starts against the Blue Jays. In six starts at Toronto, he is 4-1 with a 4.29 ERA, but in his past four starts in Canada dating to 2017, he is 4-0 with a 1.75 ERA.
Berrios (15-9, 3.52 ERA) is 2-0 with a 3.70 ERA in four career starts against St. Louis. He is 9-2 with a 2.81 ERA in 13 home starts this season. In his past six outings overall dating to Aug. 9, he is 6-0 with a 1.55 ERA.
Gibson is part of the Cardinals’ current six-man rotation. That leaves former Blue Jays left-hander Steven Matz in the bullpen for now. Matz warmed up in the bullpen during Friday’s game.
“For this time through, we’d like to give Lance (Lynn) another time on the bump and see how he comes out of that,” Marmol said. “With (Andre) Pallante, I just feel like he’s been one of our most consistent guys. Continuing to see that and develop that is important for him and the organization.
“So that puts Matz in the ‘pen for the time being, but if anything were to happen, we’ve got a pretty good weapon that we can insert.”
Cardinals second baseman Thomas Saggese has been impressive since making his major league debut on Tuesday.
Saggese had his first two major league hits and RBI on Thursday, then hit his first home run in the eighth inning Friday to tie the game at 3-3.
“We lost, so I’m kind of more thinking about that, but pretty cool to do it in that moment to tie the game,” Saggese said.
Saggese had an RBI on a fielder’s choice in the first inning and he made some superb plays in the field.
His defense, however, was overshadowed by that of Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who made one good play at third base and two more after moving to first base late in the game to possibly save the win. He also hit an RBI double.
“He was kind of on a full display today,” Jays manager John Schneider said. “Those plays were obviously huge for us.”
Guerrero was walked intentionally in the 11th inning. Alejandro Kirk hit a long RBI single to win the game, his first career walk-off hit. Kirk also had a run-scoring single in the fourth.
Toronto is 18-26 in one-run games this season. St. Louis is 27-19 in one-run games.
–Field Level Media
