Cardinals Look to Close Out Series Finale Against Sinking Rockies as McGreevy Squares Off Against Struggling Lorenzen
The St. Louis Cardinals will play the finale of a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies on Sunday afternoon, with first pitch set for 2:15 PM EDT in what's shaping up as a lopsided matchup to close out this set. This is Game 3 of 3, and while neither club is playing October baseball this weekend, there's plenty at stake for two franchises heading in different directions through the first several months of the 2026 season.
St. Louis sits at 57-58, a mediocre but respectable mark that reflects a run-differential of minus-10 — the kind of number that suggests a team hovering right around .500 quality, scoring 4.3 runs per game while allowing 4.4. Colorado, meanwhile, is buried at 45-70, and its underlying numbers are far uglier than the record even suggests. The Rockies are being outscored by a staggering minus-108 differential, allowing 5.8 runs per game against just 4.8 scored. That's not a team going through a rough patch — that's a team that has been broken for months.
The recent form backs up the disparity. St. Louis has won three of its last five, including a wild 13-7 win over the Yankees sandwiched between two other results against New York, plus a 5-1 win over Toronto. There's inconsistency — a 0-2 loss and a 1-5 loss mixed in — but the Cardinals have shown they can hang with quality opponents. Colorado's last five tell a much darker story: losses of 0-4, 7-9, and 9-13 to Tampa Bay before salvaging some pride with wins of 8-1 and 12-6 over Kansas City. When a team's "good" recent results come by way of blowout scores against a struggling opponent, and its losses come in bunches against a good one, it paints a picture of a roster that's either overmatched or dealing with significant attrition.
That attrition is real for Colorado. The Rockies' injury report is a small disaster area, with Jaden Hill, Kris Bryant, Jose Quintana, Welinton Herrera, Sean Sullivan, McCade Brown, Blas Castano, Chase Dollander, Jeff Criswell, and RJ Petit all shelved in some capacity — several on 60-day designations. Losing that much pitching depth in particular helps explain the runs-allowed crater. St. Louis has its own issues, with Max Rajcic, Jordan Walker, and Ramón Urías all banged up, though Walker remains in the lineup and available Sunday. Both clubs will also be without key regulars Sunday — the Cardinals missing Alec Burleson, Iván Herrera, Victor Scott II, and Nolan Gorman, while the Rockies will be shorthanded at Mickey Moniak, Ezequiel Tovar, Tyler Freeman, and Connor Norby.
The pitching matchup favors St. Louis clearly on paper. Michael McGreevy takes the mound for the Cardinals with a 3.59 ERA, a steady and reliable number for a mid-rotation arm. Colorado countering with Michael Lorenzen, whose ERA sits at an alarming 6.938, is about as stark a contrast as you'll find on a given Sunday. If that gap holds true to form, St. Louis should have every opportunity to jump ahead early and let its bullpen protect a lead.
Offensively, the Cardinals will lean on Jordan Walker, who's shown real pop of late with 12.5, 17, and 9.5 fantasy points over his last three outings, and JJ Wetherholt, who's been electric with a 24.5-point performance mixed into his last three games. Masyn Winn has cooled considerably, managing just single digits in each of his last three, while catcher Pedro Pagés has gone cold with back-to-back zeroes. For Colorado, Willi Castro has been the offensive engine, riding a scorching stretch of 28, 17.5, and 11.5 fantasy points in his last three games. Jake McCarthy has also heated up with 13, 22, and 20-point efforts, giving the Rockies at least a couple of players capable of doing damage even as the team around them struggles. Hunter Goodman, by contrast, has gone nearly silent behind the plate with 0, 4.5, and 0.5 points in his last three.
There are no projections available for this matchup, so there's no basis here for start or fade calls — but the on-field trends and pitching disparity speak loudly enough on their own. JockBroker users piecing together lineups this weekend should weigh the McGreevy-Lorenzen gap heavily, along with the hot streaks from Wetherholt, Castro, and McCarthy against two rosters both missing significant pieces.
Given the pitching mismatch, Colorado's historically poor run prevention, and St. Louis playing with real momentum, look for the Cardinals to take the series finale. Final prediction: Cardinals 7, Rockies 3.