The Cardinals currently have a lead over the Chicago Cubs for the division, but with plenty of head to head matchups in September, will the Cubs win the Central?
The St. Louis Cardinals are finally getting the attention they deserve, as they are three games up on the Chicago Cubs for the National League Central crown.
But the Cubs are finally starting to win games away from the friendly confines of Wrigley Field, as they have swept two of their last three road series against the Giants and Mets respectively.
These two rivals play each other seven times in the last month of the regular season. Four will be played from the 19th of September to the 22nd at Wrigley Field and the final three games of the regular season are at Busch Stadium.
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All seven of those games are going to have a postseason atmosphere to them, as both fanbases have good arguments for being the best fan base in the league.
Although the Cubs get one more home game than the Cardinals, I am still giving the advantage to St. Louis for a few reasons.
They already have a lead over Chicago in the Central, the last three games are played in Missouri, and don’t have as many injuries.
The three-game lead will be huge going down the stretch because if the Cardinals can split the four-game set at Wrigley, then the Cubs do not gain any games on them in the division, and it will be much easier to go through the remainder of the schedule with a lead (assuming the Cardinals hold the lead going into Wrigley in the middle of September).
If the Cardinals have a lead that puts the Chicago Cubs in a position they don’t want to be, which is winning games on the road.
If the Cardinals have a division lead going into the last weekend of the season, it should be a cakewalk at home as long as they win one game in the series.
And finally, the injuries are always the storylines when it comes to a division race. Javier Baez and Kris Bryant are battling thumb and knee issues respectively, so if those continue to linger then Chicago will not be favored to overcome the deficit.