Detroit Tigers vs. St. Louis Cardinals

Interleague play has its detractors, sometimes for good reason. Take for instance this past weekend’s slate of games, which featured only a handful of teams facing each other with winning records. As we move into the third series of interleague action we see plenty of interesting matchups, including six series that represent World Series rematches.

As the Detroit Tigers (34-29) travel to St. Louis to face the Cardinals (34-30) it will pit teams that have met not once, but three times in the Fall Classic in 1934, 1968 and, most recently, 2006.

Two of those three series were won by the St. Louis Cardinals, but the Tigers have dominated the recent regular series matchup as the teams have met every year since 2006 as their budding inteleague rivalry has grown, but this will be the first time since the 2006 World Series that the Tigers have played in St. Louis.

While Detroit has won eight out of the last nine regular season meetings, all of those meetings were at Comerica Park, where they split the first two games of the 2006 series. They dropped all three games in the series in St. Louis to lose it in five games.

Albert Pujols was instrumental in winning that World Series, especially when he hit a three-run home run to take command of Game 1 in Detroit when he faced Justin Verlander (7-2, 3.02).

Verlander’s rookie season was 2006 and he earned rookie of the year, but he did not fare well in his two games in the World Series. He is faring very well in his fourth year in the majors and looks to get back at Pujols and the St. Louis Cardinals when he faces them in the opening game of a three-game series in St. Louis.

Verlander has been one of the best pitchers in baseball over the last seven weeks, posting a 1.10 ERA in his last nine outings, lowest in baseball during that time. He went the distance in his last game against the Chicago White Sox, allowing six hits and one solo home run to Jim Thome in a 2-1 win on Wednesday.

The Detroit Tigers come in struggling offensively as they dropped two of three to the last place Pittsburgh Pirates over the weekend and scored just 14 runs and batted .220 in their last five games, three of them losses.

Detroit’s cool bats have helped struggling pitchers get back on their game as they did with Jose Contreras last week, so St. Louis will hope this continues when Adam Wainwright (6-4, 3.49) looks to improve on his 1-2 record with a 4.50 ERA in his last three outings.

St. Louis has struggled at the plate as well, losing seven of their last 10 and scoring only 2.1 runs in those games, including a shutout in the series finale with the Cleveland Indians on Sunday night, which featured reining AL Cy Young winner Cliff Lee nearly throwing a no-hitter against them.

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