That's not for lack of things worth watching. The Giants beat St. Louis in their last meeting and have alternated wins and losses over their last five games, a streaky pattern that makes them tough to peg from one night to the next.
St. Louis sits at 72-73, a record earned the hard way — the Cardinals have alternated a loss and a win in each of their last five, including a 10-8 shootout in Colorado. They took 2 of 3 from the Rockies before losing the opener of this set to San Francisco.
The injury list explains some of the inconsistency. Winn, Jordan and second baseman JJ Wetherholt — who just got a cortisone shot for wrist tendinitis — are all out of the lineup, and the rotation lost Hunter Dobbins for the entire year when he needed reconstructive elbow surgery.
San Francisco's issues run deeper. At 60-85, the Giants own one of the league's worst records, and their pitching staff has been gutted all year — Carson Whisenhunt, Hayden Birdsong, Randy Rodriguez and Trevor McDonald are all done for the season after elbow procedures, thinning the org's depth right as Tidwell tries to clean up his control. Beating St. Louis was a nice way out of a rough patch, but the roster damage doesn't heal in a week.