A quiet St. Louis Cardinals offense, a 3-5 road trip that included losing three of four to the New York Mets (ouch), back to Busch Stadium to begin a six-game home stand with Shelby Miller facing the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Welcome home?

Maybe, hopefully, tonight will be the time Miller manages to shut down the Pirates and find success. He’s 0-5 in his career against the Pirates with a 5.93 ERA and has allowed 20 earned runs in 27 1/3 innings along with 9 home runs.

He started against them three weeks ago tonight and pitched 5 1/3 innings while giving up 5 runs on 6 hits (3 of those hits were homers) and walked 3 while only striking out 2.

The bright side — yes, there is one after all that — is the Pirates are struggling lately too. They are 9-14 at the moment and just completed a 2-6 home stand, losing 3 of 4 to both the Brewers and the Reds. (The Brewers still have the best record in MLB, by the way, at 16-6 and have a 4 1/2 game lead in the NL Central over the Cardinals.) Continue reading →