MILWAUKEE BREWERS @ ST. LOUIS CARDINALS
Baseball : North America : MLB
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011, 8:05PM US
(1:05AM GMT)

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PREVIEW

What a performance by Albert Pujols yesterday, helping his St. Louis Cardinals bounce back for a 1-1 tie in the series. The 2 teams meet in St. Louis tonight with the Cardinals sending out their ace. I like them to take the advantage and beat the Brewers.

The Milwaukee Brewers gave up 12 runs last night in losing to St. Louis. Tonight they send out their right-handed ace, Yovani Gallardo, who is 17-10 with a 3.52ERA. He put in good performances against Arizona to get his team this far but when he last faced the Cardinals, at the start of September, he got hammered for 8 runs in under 5 innings. And yes, Pujols got his, slamming 2 of his pitches for homers.

It gives Gallardo a 1-3 record against the Cardinals this year, with a 5.70ERA.

The St. Louis Cardinals send out Chris Carpenter, owner of an 11-9 mark and 3.45ERA. He too played a part in getting his team to this stage, but they had to beat the Philadelphia Phillies. Carpenter allowed just 3 hits in a shutout of the Phillies, who had the very impressive Roy Halladay on the mound themselves.

Carpenter has done fairly decently against Milwaukee this year. He is 2-2 against the Brewers with a 3.86ERA but did pitch a shutout about a week after Gallardo's horror show.

Milwaukee were favourites for this series, but then so were the Phillies, who were knocked out by the Cardinals. The Cards are clearly capable of getting up for big situations and last night was proof of that. Trailing 0-1 in the series, away from home against a strong team, they banged out 12 runs to hand the Brewers their biggest home loss of the season. In fact, they did well the day before too, with St. Louis scoring 6 runs. The only reason the Brewers are not 0-2 down is because they were able to score a bunch in Game 1.

Tonight, they won't be able to score very many, while the Cardinals offence looks to have clicked into the next gear. Pujols will score, and the Cardinals will move to 2-1. Believe it.

BETTING VERDICT

Take the Cardinals to win tonight.

The Pick :

St. Louis Cardinals

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take the St. Louis Cardinals to win @ 1.68 (Pinnacle)