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St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Kyle Gibson used the All-Star break to review his performance to date and reset for the stretch run.

After allowing four runs on 10 hits in four innings in his last start before the break, Gibson (7-3, 3.99 ERA) went 6 2/3 frames while allowing one run on three hits in his first start since then.

Gibson will try to hold that form Saturday night when he faces the Washington Nationals in the middle contest of a three-game set in St. Louis.

The Nationals rallied to win the opener 10-8 in 10 innings on Friday night. The Cardinals will look to Gibson to restore order after they walked eight batters in the loss and blew three-run leads.

“There are times I do fairly deep dives into how I’ve been throwing and charting pitches,” Gibson said after his outing at Atlanta on July 20, which the Braves won 3-2 in 10 innings. “There comes a point I get fairly frustrated, and I want to make sure I’m looking at all angles.

“When I looked back at what I’ve written down and how I’ve been throwing and what I’ve been throwing, I felt like I wasn’t really utilizing the weapons that I have. Part of my game is to give hitters different looks.”

Gibson earned an 8-3 victory over the host Nationals on July 7. He struck out eight batters in five innings, but he allowed three runs on nine hits and two walks.

Former Cardinal Juan Yepez had an RBI double off Gibson in that game and Jesse Winker and Riley Adams each had a run-scoring single.

Washington will counter Gibson with right-hander Jake Irvin (7-8, 3.44), who is coming off a strong performance against Cincinnati. He held the Reds to two runs, on solo homers, in a game Washington won 5-2.

He struck out seven batters, walked none and coaxed 10 ground-ball outs.

In his only career appearance against the Cardinals, Irvin allowed four runs on six hits in three innings in a start on July 15, 2023.

Yepez is hitting .375 with a 1.032 OPS since his call-up from Triple-A Rochester. He had a 15-game hitting streak snapped on Thursday during San Diego Padres right-hander Dylan Cease’s no-hitter against the Nationals.

Yepez bounced back to go 3-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs in Friday’s victory. Luis Garcia Jr. and Jacob Young each drove in three runs in that game, C.J. Abrams scored twice and had an RBI.

Garcia, Abrams, Young and James Wood are cornerstone players in Washington’s rebuild.

“When you see these guys and you think to yourself, ‘Man, in two or three years, we’ve got a lot of talent,'” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. “We’re going to be really good, not just for a year or two but for many, many years, so that’s definitely exciting. It starts with the group that we have now. It started for the last couple years, building these guys up.”

Washington made a roster move ahead of Friday’s game, recalling pitcher Eduardo Salazar from Rochester and putting pitcher Jordan Weems (right shin splints) on the 15-day injured list.

Weems’ injury allowed the Nationals to recall Salazar just three days after demoting him.

“We talked about this before we sent him down; we want to see a lot more of him,” Martinez said, “and we’re going to get an opportunity to see him.”

–Field Level Media