Chicago Cubs head to nation’s most boring city for the weekend

One of baseball’s best rivalries takes center stage this weekend as the Chicago Cubs battle the division rival St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium.

Hopefully by the end of the weekend, St. Louis is a decidedly more exciting city – at least for Chicago Cubs fans. Joe Maddon‘s squad opens a three-game set at Busch Stadium Friday night, looking to get back to their winning ways after dropping two consecutive series.

Of course, the offseason spat between Kris Bryant and Yadier Molina is on everybody’s minds – after the former called St. Louis ‘boring’ at Cubs Convention. The Cardinals catcher took exception to the remark, airing his grievances on social media.

"“Of course, it’s going to be not great,” Bryant told MLB.com this week. “I was watching [Manny] Machado get booed by the Yankees [fans]. I don’t know. I hope they boo all of us. We want the games to be a nice rivalry, intense. It’s always nice to play there, because there’s a ton of people there, a lot of our fans show up. It makes it fun. No hard feelings.”"

Chicago (31-23) has managed to hold on to a slim lead in the National League Central, despite playing what can only be described as inconsistent baseball over the last couple of weeks. The Cubs dropped two of three to both the Cincinnati Reds and Houston Astros over the last seven days – and are looking for a strong showing heading into the month of June.

The offense, which has already set a franchise record for home runs in the month of May, hasn’t been a concern. They’ve been slugging and getting on base on a near-daily basis and there’s no reason to suspect that will change this weekend. Pitching, however, will take center stage – with both teams looking for quality from their starters.