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The St. Louis Cardinals finish up a four-game series with the defending champion San Francisco Giants on Thursday night. They have split the first two games of the series so far with the third game taking place on Wednesday.

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St. Louis (33-23, 15-10 home) won eight of nine from May 16-24 to go from 1.5 games out of first place in the NL Central to 3.5 games in front. The Cardinals have trailed off since then, however, alternating wins and losses in their last seven games. Most recently, they put together a late rally to overcome a 3-1 deficit to pick up a 4-3 win against San Francisco on Tuesday.

Jaime Garcia (5-1, 3.28 ERA) will start on Thursday for St. Louis. The left-hander is coming off of his first loss and worst outing of the season. He allowed career highs of 11 hits and 12 runs Saturday in a 15-4 loss to Colorado. He entered the game with a 1.93 ERA but saw it balloon to 3.28 by the time his night was over.

San Francisco (29-25, 16-17 away) went 14-6 through the first 22 days of May before going 2-6 to close the month. The Giants have been especially hurt by an unproductive offense that averaged 2 runs per game in those six losses. For the season, the Giants are 25th in the majors in total runs scored (244), 23rd in batting average (.243) and on-base percentage (.311) and 25th in slugging percentage (.368).

The Giants will start Jonathan Sanchez (3-3, 3.38 ERA) on Thursday. The left-hander went 1-2 in May with a 4.06 ERA. He pitched five innings and gave up four hits and one run in San Francisco’s 5-4 win against St. Louis on Apr. 8.