Friday night baseball and we will see the St Louis Cardinals travel to PNC Park to take on the Pittsburgh Pirates in a battle of NL Central foes. First pitch is scheduled for a 7:05 PM (Eastern) start time and the game will be televised on MLB Network.
Current Odds
St Louis +109
Pittsburgh -118
Over/ Under: 7 U -120
Analysis: The Cardinals come in after taking 2 of 3 in Cincinnati. Not a whole lot of offense in that series as they hit just .194 and scored just 2.67 rpg during the 3 game set. Just not the kind of numbers you would expect from a Cardinal lineup. Jhonny Peralta’s first hit for his new team was a two-run homer in the 7-6 victory over Cincinnati on Thursday. It is just 1 of the 2 ho,ers that the Cardinals have hit so far this season. Getting the ball for St Louis is Shelby Miller, who went 15-9 with a 3.06 ERA last year for the Redbirds. Interesting to note that Shelby was 0-4 vs Pittsburgh last year, and 15-5 vs the rest of the league. He allowed 6 HR's to the Pirates and had a 5.32 ERA in the 4 starts.
For the Pirates they come in off a three game set in Chicago, in which the Pirates went 2-1. Just like the Cardinals, Pittsburgh also had problems at the plate, but their's may be a bit more pronounced as they struggled vs a weak Chicago pitching staff. Despite taking 2 of 3 vs Chicago, Pittsburgh managed just 7 total runs and hit just .175 in the 35 innings played. Reigning National League MVP Andrew McCutchen and NL home run co-champion Pedro Alvarez are a combined 2-of-25 with eight strikeouts in the series. Gerrit Cole gets the ball for the Buccos after going 10-7 with a 3.22 ERA in his first year in the Bigs. That includes a 4-0 mark and a 1.69 ERA in September last year. Last year the Pirates won 10 of 19 games against the Cardinals in the regular season before dropping three of five in the playoffs.
Pick: I Like the Under in this game. Both offenses come in struggling big time and a game at Pittsburgh, where runs are hard to come by, won't wake these offenses up. For Pittsburgh, they will have offensive problems all year, as their lineup is just not going to be very consistent this year and I do not see them having the success vs Miller that they had last year. For the Cardinals, they are also struggling on offense and Gerrit Cole had a solid 3.75 ERA in this park last year, while allowing just 4 homeruns in 72 innings at home last year. THis one has pitchers duel written all over it.
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