After sweep, Cardinals promise their best effort vs. rival Cubs

The St. Louis Cardinals will begin the last leg of their four-team gauntlet through the National League Central when they open a three-game series against the visiting Chicago Cubs on Friday.

The Cardinals haven't fared well thus far. They lost two of three games to the Pittsburgh Pirates, split a pair of contests in a weather-abbreviated series versus the Cincinnati Reds and were outscored 13-2 in a three-game sweep by the division-leading Milwaukee Brewers.

Taken a step further, St. Louis batted .177 (17-for-96) and went 0-for-17 with runners in scoring position in the series versus Milwaukee to see its losing skid reach a season high-tying four games.

Through it all, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said he is keeping an open mind with his young club.

"What happens (in the next game or next series), I have no idea, but I can tell you what won't happen," Marmol said Thursday. "We won't have guys going out there sulking and giving away games. They're not going to let (Wednesday's 2-1 loss) affect them and they're going to give you their best shot. Whether it's good enough or not, we don't know. But it's not going to be because we didn't give our best shot."

Jordan Walker collected a pair of hits and scored the Cardinals' lone run in their 2-1 loss on Wednesday. He is 8-for-24 with two homers, eight RBIs and four runs in his last six games.

Another player who didn't struggle his last time out for St. Louis is right-hander Andre Pallante (5-4, 3.76 ERA). The 27-year-old held Cincinnati to one run on two hits with three strikeouts over six innings pitched in an 8-1 road win over the Reds on Saturday.

But if history holds, he could be in for a long day on Friday. Pallante is 4-4 over his last eight starts, alternating wins and losses throughout the streak. One the bright side, his most recent loss was perhaps his best start of the season -- one earned run over 6 2/3 innings with seven strikeouts in a 2-0 loss against Kansas City on May 17.

Pallante is 0-4 with a 4.40 ERA in 12 games (five starts) in his career against the Cubs.

He'd be wise to pitch carefully to Ian Happ, who belted a two-run homer among his three hits in Chicago's 7-2 victory over Pittsburgh on Thursday. Happ is 5-for-11 with two homers and seven RBIs in his last two games.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Cubs won both of those contests to pick up steam after losing a season-high 10 games in a row.

Speaking of losing streaks, Chicago left-hander Shota Imanaga (4-5, 4.04) will look to snap a three-game skid when he makes the start on Friday.

Imanaga was shelled in his last two outings, surrendering 15 runs on 16 hits -- including five homers -- in 10 1/3 innings. He particularly was down on himself after he was taken deep three times in an 8-5 setback at home to the Houston Astros on Sunday.

"In the beginning, (the splitter) felt good, but in the later innings, it felt like the splitters that were trying to go down below the zone were left up in the zone," Imanaga said, per the Chicago Sun-Times.

"The best ones are when it starts in the bottom of the zone and drops to the hitters' knees. That's something I need to work on."

Imanaga, 32, is 2-1 with a 2.84 ERA in four career appearances (all starts) against St. Louis.

--Field Level Media