First pitch: Monday, 10:10 p.m. ET
Line: St. Louis -130, Arizona +120, Total: 8.5

The top team in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals, attempts to continue its tremendous season when the Cardinals begin a series against the Diamondbacks on Monday night.

The Cardinals have had no issues dominating the league and they currently have the best record in baseball and own a 3.5-game lead in the NL Central. They have won six of their last seven series heading into this one, but unfortunately are fresh off their first series loss since late July. The team was nearly swept over the weekend against the Padres, but after losing the first two contests by a combined score of 17-3, were able to get a nice 10-3 victory on Sunday behind 11 hits. OF Stephen Piscotty (.324) continued a solid rookie campaign with a two-homer, five-RBI game on Sunday and is 11-for-32 (.344) with two doubles, four home runs, eight RBIs and nine runs scored over his last eight performances. The Diamondbacks have a ton of talent and have been able to creep over .500 this past week with four consecutive road victories. They are coming off of a 10-game road trip in which they are 6-4 and certainly salvaged it with the four wins against the Reds most recently. The Arizona offense outscored the opponents 26-14 and they capped it all off with a solid 4-0 shutout on Sunday; making the most of their six hits with two balls leaving the park. He didn’t have a hit on Sunday, but 1B Paul Goldschmidt (.330) is amongst the elite in the game and ranks second in the NL in batting average, first in RBIs (93) and sixth in HRs (24). Getting the call to take the mound for the visiting Cardinals will be RHP Lance Lynn (9-8, 2.94 ERA) as he looks to outduel LHP Robbie Ray (3-9, 3.38 ERA) of the host Diamondbacks. When St. Louis is playing on the road, they are not quite as dominant, going 32-26 (.552) as they take on this Arizona club which is 30-29 (.508) at Chase Field. Since the start of 2013, the Cardinals hold the 11-5 edge in this series and are 3-3 when on the road in that time. They have already met once this year and it was St. Louis who grabbed a sweep at home, outscoring the Diamondbacks 13-9 in the process. Trends show that the Cardinals are 68-31 (.687) as a favorite of -110 or higher this season while Arizona is 27-14 (.659) when the total is 8.5 to 10 this year. Plenty of offense is missing on the St. Louis side of the ball with OF Matt Holliday (Quad), 1B Matt Adams (Quad), OF Jon Jay (Wrist) and OF Randal Grichuk all on the DL. On the other side of the ball, C Tuffy Gosewisch (Knee) is out for the year.

Lynn has been a huge part of this impressive ballclub since the start of the 2012 campaign as he’s put together three consecutive seasons of at least 29 starts and 15 wins. He is arguably having his best year to date despite the lower number of wins, as he is posting a career-high mark in strikeouts (9.6 K/9) and has kept the homers (0.67 HR/9) to a minimum. Lynn is also leaving 78.0% of runners on base and has kept his walks (3.27 BB/9) at a reasonable rate. He has given up two or fewer runs in seven of his last 10 times on the mound, but has not looked too great in his last two outings with a 7:5 K/BB ratio and nine runs allowed (5 ER) in 7.1 IP. The trio of 1B Paul Goldschmidt, OF David Peralta and C Wellington Castillo have combined to go 10-for-20 (.500) with two homers and five RBIs against him, but on the other hand, OF Ender Inciarte (1-for-10, 3 K) and 2B Aaron Hill (1-for-8) have struggled against the talented righty. The Cardinals once again have assembled one of the elite bullpens in the league as the unit has gone 22-14 with a 2.37 ERA (1.24 WHIP) and are 50-for-62 (81%) in save chances. Trevor Rosenthal (1.44 ERA, 38 saves) has 63 strikeouts with just 45 hits in 56.1 frames and has not allowed a run with a mere three hits given up in nine August appearances (9 IP).

Ray was a solid prospect for the Nationals over the course of four seasons before being dealt to the Tigers where he saw his first big league experience which was short and unsuccessful. He was then moved to his current team and has been much better over 15 2015 starts; showing increased strikeout ability (7.8 K/9) and a great affinity at keeping the ball in the park (0.61 HR/9). It is not much of a surprise that he has such few wins with this club as they have scored a meager five combined runs in his last four starts. In that time he threw two quality starts and has five such outings in his last 10 times on the mound. He has never had the opportunity of facing any of the batters on St. Louis, but will need to tread lightly when going against 3B Matt Carpenter who has five homers and 11 RBIs despite hitting a mere .254 in 71 August at-bats. Not doing so well has been 2B Kolten Wong and newly acquired OF Brandon Moss who are a combined 18-for-109 (.165) with 25 strikeouts this month. The relievers for the Diamondbacks have done well, going 21-21 with a 3.31 ERA (1.25 WHIP) and have managed to save 33-of-51 (65%) games. Brad Ziegler (1.52 ERA, 23 saves) has struck out just 5.1 batters per nine innings this year and should be expected to regress with a FIP (Fielder Independent Pitching) mark of 3.57 as batters are hitting .173 BABIP against him.