Game 150 lineups: Nats at Cardinals

ST. LOUIS - There's going to be a lot of scoreboard watching tonight - and pretty much every night over the next 12 days - as four teams (the Nationals, Cardinals, Cubs and Brewers) go down to the wire to secure the three remaining postseason berths available in the National League. There's one thing the Nationals can do, however, to make life easier on everyone: Win tonight's game.

Every day the Nats win a game from here on out is a day they get closer to locking up a wild card berth. They'll still take as much help as they can get from the other red-hot opponents, but they remain in the driver's seat for now and control their own destiny. (A loss tonight, coupled with a Cubs win over the Reds, would change that dynamic and propel Chicago into the No. 1 wild card seed.)

How do the Nationals win tonight? Let's focus on the lineup instead of the pitching staff for a change. They need to score runs, and they need to give themselves more than a couple of chances to score runs. To that end, Howie Kendrick is starting at first base and batting fifth, with Asdrúbal Cabrera at second base and batting sixth. That's about the best lineup they can write out at the moment, with Kurt Suzuki still sidelined. We'll see if it leads to more runs tonight against Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas.

Patrick Corbin, meanwhile, goes up against a St. Louis lineup that really made Stephen Strasburg work Monday night. Suffice it to say Corbin needs to get ahead in the count and put away hitters, trying to keep his pitch count down and reach the later innings. Here's a fun fact you might not have known: Corbin leads the NL with 22 quality starts this season, and he's third (behind Jacon deGrom and Hyun-Jin Ryu) in starts of seven innings or more and two earned runs or fewer with 11.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
Where: Busch Stadium
Gametime: 7:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 1500 AM, MLB.com
Weather: Partly cloudy, 83 degrees, wind 5 mph in from right field

NATIONALS (82-66)
SS Trea Turner
RF Adam Eaton
3B Anthony Rendon
LF Juan Soto
1B Howie Kendrick
2B Asdrúbal Cabrera
CF Victor Robles
C Yan Gomes
LHP Patrick Corbin

CARDINALS (84-65)
RF Dexter Fowler
2B Kolten Wong
1B Paul Goldschmidt
LF Marcell Ozuna
SS Paul DeJong
C Yadier Molina
3B Tommy Edman
CF Harrison Bader
RHP Miles Mikolas