The Cardinals are coming into this game with a 53-48 record this season and they have been playing well in their recent games. They have won 3 of their last 4 games and they are coming off of a win against the Pirates in their last game. The Cardinals are in 2nd place of their division and currently sitting in a Wild Card spot in the NL, but there are also a lot of teams with similar records as them fighting for those Wild Card spots so the Cardinals will be trying to heat up now as they usually do after the All Star break, and they have already started heating up with 3 wins in their last 4. They are going up against a Pirates team that is 51-50 this season and they have been playing very well in their recent games, but now they have lost 2 of their last 3 games and their offense has been awful in these, scoring 3 runs total in their last 3 games. Martín Pérez is starting for the Pirates in this game and he is 1-5 with a 5.61 ERA this season. He allowed 6 earned runs in his last start and has allowed 11 earned runs total in his last 2 starts alone, pitching a little over 8 innings total in those. He has also allowed at least 5 earned runs in 3 of his last 4 starts and that is going to be a big problem here since his team has been cooling off on offense recently and has scored 2 runs or less 4 of Perez' last 5 starts as well. Matthew Liberatore is starting for the Cardinals in this game and he is 2-2 with a 4.15 ERA this season. He has been pitching more as a reliever this season so he will likely serve more as an opener in this game, but he has been good in his 2 appearances against the Pirates this season as a reliever, not allowing any runs in those. Perez was able to shut down the Cardinals a few weeks ago when he faced them but the Pirates still lost that game 3-2 and he is not going to repeat that performance. The Cardinals have the better offense right now and they are going to score runs on Perez and the bullpen while the Cardinals continue to pitch well. The Cardinals will win this game.