Oakland brings one of the best pitching staff to New York for a four game series against the Yankees. Trevor Cahill gets the opening game against Dustin Moseley. Cahill comes into the game with the second best ERA in the American League. His ERA goes up to 3.03 on the road, where he’s allowed 9 of his 13 home runs. Moseley has allowed a home run every five innings as a starter this season, so there’s chance this game turns into a slugfest.

The Cardinals try to reverse their slide as they send Jake Westbrook against J.A. Happ of the Astros. Westbrook improved both his control and power since coming over to the Cardinals, striking out nine per nine innings and six times more than he walks. His ERA is still over 4.00, however. Happ, too improved his rate stats after his trade, but his ERA went way up with Houston. Both pitchers are probably better than their ERAs with their new teams indicate.

The NL Wild Card features two big games this evening. The Phillies travel to Los Angeles to take on the Dodgers with Roy Halladay facing Hiroki Kuroda. Halladay has been on a roll since the start of July with a 7-2 record and a 1.87 ERA over his last ten games. He’s walked eight and struck out 74 in those 77 innings. Kuroda has been tough to hit since the All-Star break. What little power batters produced against him, however, tended to come with men on base, which is probably why his ERA is 2.94 despite the low batting numbers in that time frame.

Finally, the Rockies challenge the Giants as Jorge de la Rosa visits Jonathan Sanchez. Jorge pitches poorly away from Coors this season, with seven of his nine home runs allowed leaving a road park. Sanchez ranks third in the NL in strikeouts per nine innings at 9.44, and the Rockies rank third in total batter strikeouts, so Colorado batters could be generating a lot of wind this evening.

Enjoy!