First game of the year as St. Louis tried to defend its World Series title. \u00a0The first and most obvious difference this season is that ALbert Pujols now plays for the Angels but this club enters the season with a lot more question marks than that. \u00a0 <\/p>\n
Wednesday April 4 Probable Starters:<\/strong><\/p>\n Cardinals RH Kyle Lohse (2011: 14-8, ERA 3.39) vs. Marlins RH Josh Johnson (2011: 3-1, ERA 1.64)<\/p>\n St. \u00a0Louis<\/strong><\/p>\n How long will Chris Carpenter be out? \u00a0Is Adam Wainright back? \u00a0Does Carlos Beltran have anything left in the tank. \u00a0The answers will begin to become clear as the season progresses.<\/p>\n Another questions is how did Kyle Lohse get the opening day nod? \u00a0He was effective last year but is hardly an opening day ace. \u00a0The Cardinals dominated the Marlins last year going 6-2 but both these clubs have changed a lot of faces since then. \u00a0Half of those games were one run ball games so the gap between the clubs may not have even been that great last year. \u00a0<\/p>\n I am not a big fan of the Cardinals right now. \u00a0Replacing Pujols is impossible and they already have a few key players on the DL. [dfads params=’groups=10&limit=1&return_javascript=0′]<\/p>\n Miami<\/strong><\/p>\n No team did more to make themselves over in the offseason than the Marlins, heck they even changed their name from Florida to Miami. \u00a0More importantly they brought in one of the best shortstops in the game, Jose Reyes, and one of the best closers in Heath Bell. \u00a0This team should definitely challenge Philadelphia for supremacy in the National League East and is filled with exciting players.<\/p>\n Bell and Reyes are very solid additions but for the Marlins to succeed they need good starting pitching, especially from Josh Johnson. <\/p>\n With Johnson quality is not really the issue but quantity. \u00a0Johnson is one of the better pitchers in the National Leagues but it remains to be seen if he can deliver 200+ innings. \u00a0<\/p>\n Any game which he does start is a good bet for the Marlins he has a 29-12 record over the last three seasons.<\/p>\n Trends<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Over is 6-2 in the last 8 meetings. O\/U Pick: \u00a0Over St. Louis Cardinals (0-0) vs Miami Marlins (0-0) First game of the year as St. Louis tried to defend its World Series title. \u00a0The first and most obvious difference this season is that ALbert Pujols now plays for the Angels but this club enters the season with a lot more question marks than that. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":23218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[670],"tags":[108,3882,111,266,54451,502,647,1451,53876,14228,27450,3775,691,1028,1190,11210,54450],"class_list":["post-50132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb-baseball","tag-baseball-handicapping","tag-baseball-lines","tag-baseball-picks","tag-cardinals","tag-cardinals-marlins-gambling","tag-gambling-lines","tag-marlins","tag-miami","tag-miami-marlins","tag-mlb-baseball-previews","tag-mlb-free-pick","tag-mlb-odds","tag-mlb-predictions","tag-predictions","tag-st-louis","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-st-louis-cardinals-vs-miami-marlins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50132"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107935,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50132\/revisions\/107935"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMarlins Stadium – Miami, FL
\nTV: 7:05 p.m. ET, ESPN
\nMoneyline: \u00a0Miami -160, St. Louis +170
\nO\/U: \u00a07<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nSTL are 20-7 in the last 27 meetings in Miami.<\/p>\n
\nScore Prediction: \u00a0Florida 6 – St. Louis 3<\/strong><\/p>\nView The MLB Cappers Leaderboard For 2011 \u00a0– Picks Packages for 2012 On Sale! \u2014\u2013><\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"