We hit another winner with yesterday’s Cardinal/Braves game. We made two of our three bets work for us, raising our weekly record to 6-2. We’re sticking with the same two teams again today, in hopes that they bring us more luck. St. Louis (61-78) pulled an upset again last night, taking down Atlanta (90-48) by a final score of 11-6 to steal the series. Now the Braves are just looking to avoid getting swept.
The Pitchers
The Cardinals moved Adam Wainwright (3-10, 8.10 ERA) from starting last Sunday against the Pirates to going tonight against the Braves. Wainwright hasn’t picked up a win since beating the Mets on June 17, and is allowing an average of 5.00 earned runs per start over his last five. The promising news here is that in his last outing he held the Padres to just one run over six innings of work.
The Braves are turning to Max Fried (6-1, 2.52 ERA) to try and break the losing streak. Fried has won two in a row and in three of his last five starts. He’s allowing an average of 2.2 earned runs per game over the same stretch of time.
The Line Ups
Nolan Gorman, Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt are the stars that power the St. Louis offense. Gorman leads the team with 27 home runs, while Arenado has knocked 87 RBI, and Goldschmidt is posting a .277 batting average. The Cardinals have scored 35 runs over the last five games.
Matt Olson has blasted 46 home runs, and knocked in 115 RBI for the Braves, while Ronald Acuna Jr. has a .330 batting average. Atlanta has scored 23 total runs over the last five games.
The Streaks
The Cardinals are looking for a series sweep of the Braves after taking the first two games of the series, and extending their winning streak to three in a row. Meanwhile, Atlanta has lost three in a row.
The Odds
Braves -1.5
Braves -370 on the moneyline
O/U 10.5
We picked the Cardinals to pull the upset last night and that’s exactly what they did. I can’t go there again tonight though. I like the Braves with both as a -1.5 run favorite and on the moneyline. Not sure that I can jump in there on the over, though. That’s a lot of runs, so I’ll take the under and sweat it out.
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