Despite Wainwright’s absence, the Cardinals led the majors at press time with 32 quality starts – five of those by Jake Westbrook, who otherwise has some ugly looking peripherals with a 5.17 ERA and a 1.57 WHIP. Looking at the fancy-schmancy stats available at FanGraphs, we can interpret that Westbrook has had some bad luck this season, judging by his .309 BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play), up from .298 for his career. He’s also stranding just 63.6 percent of base runners, down from 68.8 percent.

Westbrook is already starting to get some of that karma back. Those aforementioned five quality starts were in his last six outings, improving his team record to 6-4 with a tidy 2.47 units of profit. The Cardinals already have the best batting order in the NL with a .777 OPS, and Westbrook has gotten 5.0 runs per game in support. However, Matt Holliday (.996 OPS) is uncertain to meet his former teammates in Friday’s series opener because of a tight left quadriceps.

The Rockies will face Westbrook after absorbing a disappointing 6-3 loss to the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks (+151) on Thursday night while the Cards were idle. Colorado is expected to start their supposed ace, Ubaldo Jimenez (1.41 WHIP, 5.44 ERA), who is near the bottom of the money standings at 9.25 units in the red on a team record of 1-7. First pitch is at 8:40 p.m. Eastern.

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