The Cardinals, coming off a four-game split with the Philadelphia Phillies, host the Kansas City Royals Monday at 7:15 p.m. in the first of three at Busch Stadium.
The teams will also meet Tuesday at 7:15 p.m. and on Wednesday at 1:15 p.m. The I-70 series will wrap up Aug. 10-12 in Kansas City.
The Cardinals are 3-3 in interleague play this season and 55-39 all-time against the Royals. Kansas City, however, is 15-14 at Busch III. The Royals are 0-2 in interleague play this season.
The Royals are 7-14 on the road this season and enter Monday's action at 14-32 overall.
Monday's pitching matchup features Miles Mikolas (5-0, 2.63 ERA) for the Cardinals against fellow righthander Ian Kennedy (1-4, 4.98) for the Royals.
While no one in the Kansas City lineup has faced Mikolas previously, the Cardinals have a number of players who've had success against Kennedy, who previously pitched for National League clubs Arizona and San Diego. That list includes Jedd Gyorko (.667 with a homer and two RBIs), Tommy Pham (.500 with a homer and three RBIs) and Marcell Ozuna (.400).
After hitting homers in back-to-back games over the weekend, rookie Tyler O'Neill is in right field and hitting fifth in Monday's game. Greg Garcia gets the start at shortstop two days in a row, with Matt Carpenter at second and Gyorko at third.
After taking off Sunday, Ozuna returns to the lineup, batting fourth and playing left.
“He's a key guy in the middle of our lineup and that's where he's going to be,” Cards manager Mike Matheny said prior to Monday's game. “He's one of the better hitters in the league and when it's all said and done, we have to help him get there. … One of these days, we know he's going to figure it out.”
Ozuna entered Monday's action hitting .234 with three homers and 21 RBIs.
STILL BUZZING ABOUT 105 MPH
A day after he topped out at 105 miles per hour twice, rookie righthander Jordan.Hickman was still a hot topic at Busch prior to Monday's game.
“I don't want to face him,'' Cards first baseman Jose Martinez said. “The good thing is, it looks like he's going to be here a long time and I want to be here a long time, too. So hopefully I'll never have to face him, which is good.
“You're talking about 105 with sink. That is not fun at all. Sometimes you go up there and see 100, 100, 100 without movement, so maybe you have a little more of a chance. But (Hicks') ball was moving and sinking, going up and down, you have no chance because you have no chance to track the ball.
“It's coming out of nowhere and sinking like that... good luck.”
Matheny, who spent 13 years as a major-league catcher, said the hardest pitch he ever caught was 101.
“There was a lot of variation on the guns then, but it was definitely over 100,'' he said. “But what I liked (about Hicks' Sunday effort) was that he wasn't overthrowing and he was throwing strikes. That's the most important thing.”
Matheny talked about the challenge of catching a pitcher who routinely throws over 100.
“There's no way to practice it,'' he said. “The more they see him, work with him, it's like any other pitcher.... It's conditioning. The more they see it, the velocity, it's a timing mechanism that you just have to react a little earlier and anticipate where the movement is going to take it.”
Matheny continued: “I don't want this stuff to get in his head. It's something we're just going to continue to talk about pitching and making good pitches. His velocity is a gift, but it's something he's also worked hard on. He's been as diligent as anybody we have about staying on our arm program and working in the weight room. You start adding that in with his God-given talent, it's something once again we're going to have to try and, once again, contain and something he's going to have to maintain.”
INJURY UPDATES
General manager Michael Girsch couldn't help but fear the worst.
“I prefer days when we don't have to make roster moves,'' he joked. “The other day, in the ninth inning when (Matt Carpenter) hit a foul ball of his ankle, I just assumed he had shattered something. But obviously it's better when we don't have to do anything (in terms of making DL moves).
“The good thing is now we're getting back to people getting healthy as opposed to getting hurt.”
Girsch provided the following injury updates prior to Monday's series opener against the Kansas City Royals:
• Carlos Martinez: “He's going to start throwing. We'll see how that goes and then go from there. He's starting progression back after not throwing for two weeks now, so we'll take it step by step.”
• Adam Wainwright: “This is going to be frustrating, but he saw the doctors today and had a different test done and I have not heard the results yet.”
• Paul DeJong: “He had his first post-op today with the hand specialist. My understanding is that he'll start doing very basic hand rehab-type stuff. But until he starts doing some stuff and gets a feel for how it's going to go, we won't know much. The specialists will kind of guide us on when he's ready to take each step.”
• Dominic Leone: “He's going to be a while. His next checkup is not for a couple of weeks.”
• Luke Gregerson: “Before we leave town, he'll see the doctor and figure out whether he's ready to start throwing again.”
• Matt Bowman: “The blisters are getting better.”
• Tyler Lyons: “Lyons threw this morning or maybe it was this afternoon in Springfield. He's on his way back. Once we see him and make sure everything's good, he's probably about ready to rejoin us sometime in the next few days.”
• Carson Kelly: “He's making good progress. Good chance he'll be ready to go when the 10 days are up on Saturday.”
• Yadier Molina: “He's seeing the doctor on, I believe, Thursday and that's when we'll get some guidance on how fast he can start doing just physical activity, not baseball activity because he's been pretty much on significant rest. It's hard to project out what comes next until we know how fast he start jogging and working out and that sort of stuff.”
Girsch also noted that righthander Alex Reyes will make his next rehabilitation assignment Thursday at Memphis.
“If everything goes well, that's likely his last rehab start,'' the GM said. “We expect him to be in the rotation, which leads to a whole bunch of other questions which we'll have to answer in the next week or two as we get closer to him coming back.”
Monday's lineups:
CARDINALS
Tommy Pham, CF
Matt Carpenter, 2B
Jose Martinez, 1B
Marcell Ozuna, LF
Tyler O'Neill, RF
Jedd Gyorko, 3B
Greg Garcia, SS
Francisco Pena, C
Miles Mikolas, P
ROYALS
Jon Jay, CF
Jorge Soler, RF
Mike Moustakas, 3B
Salvador Perez, C
Whit Merrifield, 2B
Hunter Dozier, 1B
Alex Gordon, LF
Alcides Escobar, SS
Ian Kennedy, P
