BASEBALL: Streaking Cardinals return home to take on Dodgers

After getting the best of one of baseball's best pitchers, the St. Louis Cardinals will return home this weekend to see what they can do against the least experienced starters the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers have to offer.

The Cardinals will face the Dodgers in Friday's opener of a three-game series and six-game homestand after beating Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes on Thursday.

St. Louis finished a four-game series sweep at Pittsburgh with a 10-5 victory on Thursday. The Cardinals are 10-5 in their last 15 games.

Rookie JJ Wetherholt and Jordan Walker hit first-inning home runs against Skenes, who needed 102 pitches to get through five frames. The blast from Wetherholt led off the game and was his seventh homer in 31 career contests.

"You never want to ask for Skenes (as an opponent), but at the same time, I think it brought the best out of everyone knowing that you won the first three and you can kind of come out and lock in against one of the best," Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said.

"With JJ starting off the game the way he did, it just lit a fire under everybody. It was a really good series."

The Cardinals will send left-hander Matthew Liberatore (0-1, 4.75 ERA) to the mound against the Dodgers on Friday. He enters off his worst start, when he allowed five runs on eight hits over a season-low 3 1/3 innings in his team's 11-9 loss to the Seattle Mariners on Saturday.

In seven career appearances (one start) against the Dodgers, Liberatore has a 6.39 ERA without a decision in 12 2/3 innings.

The Dodgers will send Emmet Sheehan (2-0, 4.78 ERA) to the mound Friday, followed by fellow right-hander Roki Sasaki on Saturday and left-hander Justin Wrobleski on Sunday. That group has just three career starts combined against the Cardinals, while Sheehan and Sasaki will pitch at St. Louis for the first time.

In his lone career appearance against the Cardinals, Sheehan earned the win when he gave up two unearned runs over five innings last August in the Dodgers' 12-6 victory

Los Angeles has lost two of its last three series and is in an offensive downturn, scoring eight total runs against the Miami Marlins this week while losing two of three games in a home series.

The Dodgers had the bases loaded with one out in the ninth inning Wednesday before Freddie Freeman grounded into an unorthodox unassisted double play by Marlins second baseman Xavier Edwards to end the 3-2 defeat.

Freeman has gone 19 consecutive games without a home run.

"We've kind of been going through it, I would say as a group," Freeman said of the offense. "Luckily, we have really, really good pitching, (and) that's why we're kind of where we're at right now (20-11 record)."

Mookie Betts has been out for nearly a month with an oblique injury, and Shohei Ohtani has lacked consistency at the plate, although he has emerged from some April struggles with seven hits and six walks in his last four games.

"It's a long season, as we all know," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "You'd like everyone to get off to a good start, but a lot of guys are not performing to the back of their baseball cards. You hope that the consistency of work will show benefits and it will balance out at some point."

-Field Level Media/Reuters