The St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds are playing on the MLB Opening Day schedule for 2014 and the tradition at the Great American Ball Park in Ohio to start the season continues and the game is on ESPN and streaming from the WatchESPN website at 4 pm and has the defending NL champs looking to start another World Series run in the National League Central.
The game has Adam Wainwright matching up with Johnny Cueto as the starting pitchers for the opener and the two wised will be looking to start off the 2014 campaign with a win. The Cardinals have been one of the most dominant and consistent teams in the National League over the past five seasons and now they will try and keep the Reds down again after they made the playoffs the year before last as division winners and last season as the wild card. Both teams have dealt with injuries and now the Cardinals are hoping that adding Jhonny Peralta will give them a bit more offense as they try to repeat as NL champs again.
Wainwright comes in after another great season and he went 19-9 last year with a sub 3.00 ERA once again and he will be the rock in the rotation for the Cards with young studs like Joe Kelly and Michael Wacha, who broke out last season in the World Series. The Reds wish they had the same rotation as the Cardinals, as the team is dealing with a number of injuries, including with Mat Latos and closer Aroldis Chapman, who took a liner off the face in spring training and will be out for some time. The team is excited with Billy Hamilton coming up, as he is a speedster and can steal bases, but the team will have to make sure they have enough offense as well.
The Cardinals come in after winning 97 games and they will play the Reds for only the second time in the past two decades to open the year and they will get their home opener later on in the schedule. The Reds played against the Pittsburgh Pirates last season in the wild card game and they lost that matchup and the team now has fallen out of the playoffs three times in their first try over the past four seasons and Joey Votto is hoping that this year the team has the right mix to get things done.
The Central has turned into a very tough division, as the Cardinals are perennial winners, while the Reds have been much improved and now the Pirates are looked at as a dark horse in the NL, as the bring back the league MVP and manager of the year in the National League after they broke their two decade streak of missing the playoffs. Mike Matheny is back in the saddle for the Cards and they come in after having a great offensive season, ranking in the top five in runs, batting average and on base percentage and they are hoping that continues in 2014. The pitching was nearly as good with the team in the top five in ERA and they also ranked in the top 10 in WHIP and had a 3.42 overall ERA.
