The St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds open a three-game series Friday night at Busch Stadium, with Kyle Leahy starting for St. Louis against Brady Singer for Cincinnati. First pitch is set for 8:15 p.m. ET.
The matchup has the kind of weight that makes a Friday game matter in June. Leahy came in with a 5-3 record and a 4.25 ERA, while Singer arrived at 2-5 with a 6.18 ERA, and the teams were separated by just one win even though the standings placed the Cardinals third in the NL Central and the Reds fifth.
St. Louis entered at 32-28, one game ahead of Cincinnati’s 31-30 mark, and that gap is small enough that a single series can bend the division race in either direction. The Cardinals still carried the better record, but the standings left them only two places apart from a Reds club that has spent enough time hovering nearby to turn this series into an early test of how tightly packed the division is.
That is what gives Leahy’s start added attention. He is not just taking the ball in a regular-season game; he is opening a series against a rival sitting close enough to make every inning matter, and the same is true for Singer, who has to reset a Cincinnati staff line that has not matched the Cardinals’ record so far. The first game sets the tone, but it does not settle much beyond who gets the early edge in a three-game stretch that already feels like it could matter later.
The bigger question is whether either club can use this opening game to create distance in a division where the margins have already tightened. The series begins Friday night in St. Louis, and for both teams the first few innings may say as much about the direction of the race as the final score.
