After playing one of their worst series of the season, the St. Louis Cardinals begin a grueling 22-game stretch against teams with winning records. That grind begins Friday when they host the Los Angeles Dodgers to open a three-game series at Busch Stadium.
The Cardinals will seek to rebound after suffering 6-1, 4-1 and 9-2 losses to the Reds at Cincinnati this week. St. Louis has lost 14 of its past 22 games.
"I'm not worried about who's in the other dugout, but it's a matter of trusting in one another and playing the brand of baseball we can play," Cardinals outfielder Alec Burleson said, according to MLB.com . "We haven't gotten away from that, but some things haven't gone our way, and as an offense, we're scuffling.
We've proven that we're capable of coming out of something like this." St. Louis fell nine games behind the National League Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers.
They fell four games off the pace in the NL wild-card race. "This wild-card race and the division race are going to be tight, and we still have a lot of games with Milwaukee, and I feel like that can go in our favor," pitcher Kyle Gibson said. "We're going to be playing meaningful games to the end of September, and I've got no doubt that this team can get through this stretch and start playing quality baseball again.
" Cardinals starting pitcher Miles Mikolas (8-9, 5.30 ERA) will try to rebound after allowing a combined nine runs on 16 hits in just eight innings in his past two starts. The Dodgers beat hi.