Steele Looks To Stop Cardinals On Sunday Night

Cardinals vs. Cubs, 7:05 ET

Sunday brings with it a lot of things in the sports world. During football season, there is no more exciting day. When they have London games, we get football essentially all day long with only minor pockets were we are forced to interact with other humans and not zone out on the screen. With baseball, it isn't quite the same format, but they offer something close with essentially every team playing the last game of a series. The games start early and we have one primetime matchup scheduled for the end of the night - this one is the Cardinals taking on the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

The Cardinals continue to search for an answer of how to consistently make the progress needed in order to either capture the Wild Card or Division. Now that we are in the beginning of August, the window has closed on the team to get better via trade, and they only have a limited time remaining for this final push to reach the playoffs. If the season ended today, they would be on the outside of the bubble and miss the playoffs. They still have the Braves, Diamondbacks, Mets, and Padres all ahead of them in the race. Winning this one against the Cubs won't catapult them into the playoffs, but they need to be better than 4-6 over their last 10 games if they want to win. Tonight, they put one of my arch nemesis (this season) on the mound as Miles Mikolas takes the hill. He's been a guy that I've supported and made good money off of over the years, but this year, Mikolas has been a hard read for me. For the season, Mikolas brings an 8-8 record, 4.99 ERA, and a 1.23 WHIP. He has allowed 18 homers over 22 starts, so that isn't the main issue, and he has just 20 walks allowed this season, so that isn't it. The problem is that he is allowing hitters to bat .275 against him - is that luck or is it truly that teams find ways to string together hits off of him? He has put up back-to-back quality starts and is looking now for his third in a row. He has faced the Cubs three times this season, and posted two quality starts against them and one game where he allowed six earned runs (four homers) in 5.1 innings.

The Cubs aren't eliminated from the playoffs, but it is very rarely a good sign when your team says they are going to make moves at the trade deadline with the future in mind rather than upgrading the current club. If I may have a moment to share some thoughts as a fan: The Cubs are thoroughly disappointing. The Ricketts family delivered a championship eight years ago and almost everyone from that team is gone. I can accept that. What I can't accept is that the team has done virtually nothing since despite being in one of the biggest markets in baseball. The biggest signing was Dansby Swanson - who was probably the third most coveted shortstop on the market. They took a flier on Cody Bellinger, and that did work out for one season. However, it seems like the Cubs are a middle market team, looking for diamonds in the rough on one-year deals to try and trade away midseason if things don't work out. Maybe there is some master plan that the front office has, but it looks more like they are penny-pinching and more invested in making the area around Wrigley enjoyable than the team they put on the field. Sorry, had to get that off of my chest. They do have some talent on the roster, and one of the better players goes tonight a Justin Steele toes the rubber. Steele has dealt with injuries this season, causing him to miss all of April, but this is still his 18th start of the year. He started the month off well, going 16 innings over two games and allowing just five hits and one earned run in those games. However, he has allowed 12 earned runs over the last 14.2 innings. He has not faced St. Louis this season, but has been strong against them in the past, holding them to a .239 average against him.

I don't think the Cubs are the best team in baseball or something. And, obviously, if you read the paragraph above, I'm fairly critical of how the team operates. This does seem like a good spot for them to get a win though. Mikolas is capable of tossing gems, but he is also just as capable of a disaster outing. Something seems wrong with Steele lately, but he tends to rebound well from poor starts. I'll back the Cubs here on the run line because I'd rather get plus money than pay the juice, and I think this will be a comfortable win for the Cubs if they do escape with a victory.

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