MLB Betting – Pirates vs Cardinals Preview & Pick
Oh, how the Pittsburgh Pirates long for the good old days of…six weeks ago. Around the All-Star break, they were in the thick of the National League Central race, jockeying for the division lead with Milwaukee and St. Louis.
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Bet On Baseball – Pirates vs Cardinals Preview & Pick
Date: Thursday, August 25, 2011
Venue: Busch Stadium, St. Louis, MO
Broadcast: ROOT, FSMW
Pittsburgh Pirates at St. Louis Cardinals Betting Lines from Bodog.com
Money Line: Cardinals -165
Over/Under: 8
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Pittsburgh Pirates (60-68 through August 23)
Charlie Morton (9-6, 3.42)
Flash forward to late August and the Bucs sit 16.5 games back of the Brew Crew, who have pulled away from the whole division.
The Pirates can only hope to play spoiler now against the Cards at St. Louis on Thursday night. Charlie Morton will get the start. He remains hittable as ever, allowing a .275 opponents’ average, but he continues to do a remarkable job avoiding homers, serving up just five gopher balls in 139.2 innings.
Morton has been a road warrior this season, going 6-2 with a 3.07 ERA over 11 starts. In his last visit to Busch stadium, he held the Cads to one run in six innings, securing the win. [dfads params=’groups=10&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]
St. Louis Cardinals (67-62 through August 23)
Edwin Jackson (9-9, 4.03)
Is the Colby Rasmus trade becoming the new Curse of the Bambino in St. Louis? Not to exaggerate Rasmus’ value, but something horrible has happened to the Cardinals since they traded him to Toronto in a heavily criticized move.
At the time of the deal, they were half a game back of Milwaukee. Now, they’re 10 games back. Of the pieces they received, Corey Patterson is batting .189 and Edwin Jackson is a ho-hum 2-2 with a 4.45 ERA. He’s allowed seven homers and a .323 batting average over 32.1 innings.
MLB Trends
PIT are 1-7 in their last 8 games following a win.
PIT are 13-39 in their last 52 Thu. games.
PIT are 7-19 in their last 26 overall.
STL are 16-5 in their last 21 Thu. games.
Under is 6-2-1 in STL last 9 home games.
Over is 10-4 in STL last 14 Thu. games.
PIT are 3-9 in the last 12 meetings in St. Louis.
MLB Free pick:
The pitching matchup appears to favor Pittsburgh since (a) Morton has excelled on the road, (b) he keeps the ball down and is facing a homer-dependent team and (b) Jackson has struggled so badly. He’s been better in St. Louis, going 2-0 with a 2.45 ERA, but the accompanying WHIP of 1.53 suggests he’s simply gotten lucky.
Jackson doesn’t appear comfortable on the hill. I’d expect an ugly game overall and a meaningless win for Pittsburgh.
Pirates vs Cardinals prediction: Pirates 4, Cardinals 3
