The St. Louis Cardinals (39-21) and the Cincinnati Reds (36-24) open their weekend series with a 7:10 p.m. ET matchup at Great American Ball Park. The game will air live on MLB Network and will stream live on MLB.com with a paid subscription.
The Cardinals lead the Reds by three games in the NL Central after beating Arizona 12-8 on Thursday, hitting a season-high five homers. Matt Holliday went 2 for 3 with a two-run shot in the first.
David Freese extended his career-best hitting streak to 16 gmaes for the Cardianls, who have dropped three of their past four games.
The Reds have lost three of four, falling 12-4 to Colorado on Wednesday. Cincinnati didn't score after Xavier Paul hit a three-run homer in the first inning. They have played each game in that stretch without Brandon Phillips, who has been dealing with a bruised left forearm. He expects to return Friday against a St. Louis team that has won four of the six meetings with Cincinnati this season.
"I feel like the Cardinals are the best team in baseball right now," Phillips told the team's official website. "Those are the type of teams we have to step our game up, and I'm glad I'm going to play Friday. I think everybody on our team is looking forward to it. That shows where you really are when you play against the best teams."
They'll also face one of the top pitchers in baseball as St. Louis sends out Adam Wainwright (8-3, 2.33 ERA) who has fared well in recent starts.
Wainwright has walked six this year, making his 14-to-1 strikeouts-to-walks ratio by far the best in the majors. No pitcher has finished with a better ratio than Bret Saberhagen's 11 to 1 in 1994. "You can go a tick or two down in velocity and locate and still get the job done," Wainwright said.
Mike Leake (5-2, 2.75) has been even better than Wainwright recently, going 3-0 with a 0.33 ERA while allowing one earned run in 27 innings over his last four starts. He went 2-2 with a 4.32 ERA in his first seven outings to spark rumors that he might lose his spot in the rotation, pitched six innings to beat Pittsburgh 2-0 on Saturday.
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