Nationals, Cardinals Collide in a Late-Season Battle of Irrelevance
Two teams well below .500 meet at Busch Stadium tonight, with Washington (72-82) and St. Louis (75-79) both playing out the string in September. There's no validated model read for this one — so we're going straight to the tape on what actually matters: pitching matchup and who's swinging a hot bat.
Andrew Alvarez is expected to take the mound for Washington against a Cardinals lineup that has real teeth at the bottom of a lost season. Michael McGreevy is set to start for St. Louis, and this is the kind of low-stakes, high-intrigue pitching matchup that can go sideways fast when offenses have nothing to lose and everything to prove for next year's roster decisions.
On the Washington side, CJ Abrams is the name to watch — 30 home runs and 97 RBI on the season make him the clear power threat in this lineup, and he's the kind of hitter who can single-handedly flip a game against a young starter still finding his footing at the big-league level. James Wood at .266 gives the Nationals a legitimate contact option to build around Abrams, and together they form a top-of-the-order combination that St. Louis cannot afford to sleep on.
For the Cardinals, Alec Burleson has quietly put together a genuinely impressive season — .283 average and 111 RBI is a number that demands respect regardless of where St. Louis sits in the standings. That RBI total tells you he's been productive with runners on base all year, and McGreevy will need run support if this game gets competitive early. Jordan Walker's 28 home runs add a legitimate power dimension to the St. Louis attack, and with two dangerous right-handed bats in the middle of that order, Alvarez will need to be sharp. No model projection is available for tonight's game, so rather than lean on a number, lean on this: Burleson's 111 RBI suggest the Cardinals have been getting it done situationally all season, and home-field at Busch Stadium is a real factor when the margin between these two clubs is this thin.