10:10pm ET / 7:10pm PT
ST LOUIS CARDINALS w/ Poncedeleon @ LOS ANGELES DODGERS w/ Ryu
3*** Play on: OVER THE TOTAL
The OU Line for Game Two of this CARDINALS / DODGERS series opened at 8 runs. That’s the line that we got our action in. As of this morning, some sports books have bumped it up to 8.5 runs. That’s not surprising. If this were a matchup of A or even B pitchers for both teams, we might shy away from it. But it is not. There will be no Kershaws, or Buehlers, or Striplings going for the home team. For the Cardinals, none of their Top Four starting pitchers will be going either. It’s a matchup of Poncedeleon for the Redbirds and Ryu for the Dodgers. Daniel Poncedeleon is joining the St Louis rotation in place of Luke Weaver, who has now been moved to the bullpen. So this will be only the 2ND career start for the 26-year old. No worries there. On the flip side, we will certainly give credit to Lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu for a pretty good season thus far. The 31-year old native of South Korea looked pretty good in his last start against the Giants six days ago. But let’s get real. That start vs San Francisco was his FIRST one in over 3 months. From May 2nd to August 10, Ryu has been leaking with severe groin issues. So its not lie he is on some kind go long-term, dominating run here. This will be only his 2nd start in the last
3+ months…
We gotta like the way that both teams are hitting the ball as of late. For the visiting Redbirds, they are averaging a very nice 6 runs per game in their last 12. The fact that they are facing a LEFTY tonight is also good news for us OVER bettors. On the season, St Louis is averaging more than a half run-per-game MORE versus Lefties than Righties. In their last 10 games, the CARDS are averaging almost 7 runs per game versus southpaws. And their last 16 ROAD games versus LEFTIES have gone 12-4 O/U. For the home team, it’s also a good sigh that they are facing a righty tonight. On the season, the Dodgers are averaging almost 1.5 runs per game MORE versus righties (5.2) than versus lefties (3.9). In their last five games, LA is pounding 6.7 runs per game vs righties. After slumping on offense in the last 10-14 days, the Dodgers finally found their groove over the weekend in the Seattle series (27 runs in three games).
As is always the case, the key to pulling the trigger in this game comes down to the Man in Blue. Working behind the dish in Game Two of this series will be JIM WOLF. He comes in ranked as the 4th BEST ‘Over' Umpire on the season, with a year-to-date record of 16-6-2 O/U (73% Overs). The only guys who are ranked higher than Wolf are Rackley (14-4 O/U)… Guccione (16-5 O/U)… and Johnson (17-6 O/U). But if you are more into CURRENT stats and form, then look no further. WOLF is the #1 OVER Umpire of the last three months. Since the beginning of June, Wolf has gone an amazing 10-1-1 O/U (91% Overs) in his last 12 games, with an average of 11.6 combined runs per game. Help also gone 8-2 O/U on Tuesdays dating back to last season.