A pair of current National League wild-card teams will meet in a potential postseason preview on Monday as the St. Louis Cardinals host the San Diego Padres in the opener of a three-game set.
Nearing the halfway point of the regular season, St. Louis enters the matchup in the top wild-card slot, 1 1/2 games ahead of the Padres. The Cardinals are coming off a series loss against the Minnesota Twins in which their pitching staff allowed 20 runs across three games.
Dustin May (4-6, 4.21 ERA) will look to halt St. Louis’ pitching woes in his 14th start on Monday. The 28-year-old is sporting a 2.31 ERA in a pair of outings in June, including the best start of his 2026 campaign.
May tossed six scoreless innings against the New York Mets on Tuesday, allowing four hits, while striking out six and walking one in a 7-0 victory.
“May has done a really nice job. He’s been locked in and just on the attack,” St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said. “He had everything working (on Tuesday). The sweeper was a really good pitch for him. He was using both sides of the plate, up and down with the fastball. He was dominant.”
The next challenge for the veteran right-hander will be posting his first set of back-to-back wins since three straight victories from April 10-21.
“I feel healthy,” said May, who made just 20 starts from 2021-23 and missed all of 2024 with various injuries. “I feel really strong right now, so I’m trying to build off of that.”
A longtime National League West rival of the Padres as a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, May is 2-5 with a 3.73 ERA in 14 career appearances (11 starts) in the matchup. May faced San Diego on May 9, allowing three runs (two earned) and three hits in six innings of a 4-2 loss.
May and the Cardinals will hope to see a better effort on the mound as they host San Diego, which owns the worst batting average in the majors (.219).
Amid an unimpressive stretch, the Padres have earned consecutive wins for the first time since May 22-23. San Diego had dropped 13 of 17 games prior to that, but first-year manager Craig Stammen’s group has momentum after a series win over the host Baltimore Orioles.
“It did feel like it had been a while,” Stammen said of the team’s winning streak in three weeks. “We had a tough stretch there. It’s just about us winning series. To finish this one off with two good wins is a big deal.”
The lowest scoring offense in the majors, San Diego tallied 14 runs in the last two wins.
Right-hander Lucas Giolito (2-1, 4.35) is slated to make his sixth start for the Padres since his season debut on May 17. Giolito has failed to complete five innings in three straight appearances. The former All-Star allowed one run on two hits in four frames, but the right-hander walked five on Tuesday in a no-decision against the Cincinnati Reds. San Diego lost 5-3 in 11 innings.
Giolito is 1-2 with a 3.70 ERA in four career starts against St. Louis.
–Field Level Media
