The St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs are playing on Opening Night for Sunday night baseball to open the 2015 MLB season and the matchup is from ESPN2 on TV at Wrigley Field and will be streaming on the WatchESPN website at 8 pm ET as Jon Lester and Adam Wainwright face off on the mound in an NL central showdown to kick off the year.
The Cubs are coming into the season with high expectations and the Cardinals are the perennial team in the NL Central and now the upstarts will host. Joe Maddon is taking over as manager for the Cubs and even though it's just one game, it would be big for Chicago to start off the season with a win over the Cards. The team signed Jon Lester to a big contract in the offseason and the Cubs feel they have talent to compete for a wild card position in 2015.
Anthony Rizzo has established himself as an All-Star caliber player and the team is hoping he can lead them to the promise land. Maddon brings in a winning attitude and once Kris Bryant comes in, the team should be even better. The Cardinals are the team to beat in the division and they have Wainwright on the mound and they added Jason Heyward this offseason. The two teams will meet again in early May and that will be on the road for the Cubs in St. Louis.
The Cubs have a ton of young talent and Bryant will be starting the season in the minors along with Javier Baez. The team expects those players to be back soon and Bryant had some controversy around his status, as many thought that he deserved to be on the 25-man roster. Bryant comes in after hitting over 40 home runs last season and he led the majors with nine this past spring and the team was accused of holding him back to have him under control for another year, something clubs have been doing for ages.
Wainwright and Lester are expected to be two of the biggest starters in the central this season and they should be the aces for their respective rotations. Lester signed for over $150 million this offseason and Wainwright comes in after posting a career best ERA last season and the Cardinals are hoping he can stay healthy for the year in 2015.
Rizzo comes in after putting up some great numbers and he will be a key player for the Cubs if they want to compete with the central. Major League Baseball smartly only puts one game on Sunday, because everyone can leave work or school to go to Opening Day, so holding that on a Monday makes a ton of sense. The Cubs hope to stay in the conversation to start the season and by the end they hope to compete with the Cardinals for the division or wild card title.
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