The Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals wrap up their three game series on Sunday night with Jason Marquis facing Todd Wellemeyer.  Marquis is 1-1 on the season with a 4.45 ERA.  He gave up five runs on 10 hits in five innings in his last start against Milwaukee.  He was 3-1 with a 3.60 ERA against the Cardinals last season.  Wellemeyer is 2-1 on the season with a 4.14 ERA.  Wellemeyer is pitching better recently and will be facing his former team.

The Cardinals have lost the season series to the Cubs in each of the past three years, going 19-31 against them. St. Louis was 8-10 against the Cubs at the new Busch Stadium before the start of this series.  Jason Isringhausen has a lifetime 5.03 ERA against the Cubs, including 6.43 last year. Albert Pujols has a career .288 average against the Cubs, his second-lowest mark against any National League team.

Last year the Cubs were 10-14 in April but this year they were 17-10 during the month.  They hit .286, and had an on-base percentage of .375 during the month of April. The Cubs’ 171 runs, 279 hits, 62 doubles, 130 walks, batting average and on-base percentage for the month were all club records. They had two five-game winning streaks during the month of April. Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster each won four games in April. The only MLB betting National League teams to win more games in April were the Cardinals and Diamondbacks. The Cubs were averaging 6.3 runs per game during the month of April, which is the highest runs-per-game average at the end of April for them since the 1954 team averaged 7.6 runs per game.

The Cardinals were even better in April going 18-11.  It is the most wins ever for a Cardinals team in April.  They have been led recently by Rick Ankiel who went 8-13 with five RBI’s against the Reds in their last series.  Hitting in front of Albert Pujols, Ankiel had an excellent month of April and has given the Cardinals a powerful one-two punch in the lineup.

At the end of April, the top three teams in the Central Division – the Cubs, the Cardinals and the Brewers combined to go 50-33 which is better than the top three teams of any other division.