MLB Baseball
2012-05-23 - San Diego Padres at St Louis Cardinals
A Sports Betting Pick by Auls
United States: Major League Baseball
Wednesday 23 May 2012 - First Pitch 8:15pm ET
1:15am (British Standard Time)
Preview
The St Louis Cardinals (24-19) made an extremely fast start to the 2012 season as they seemed to pick up right where they left off from winning the World Series last season. However, they had been struggling in recent weeks to get into the win column with consistency so a series with the San Diego Padres (16-28) has seemingly come at the right time.
The Cardinals are looking to complete the sweep of the series after winning the first two games with 4 runs in each of those. They took a 4-0 win last night and have used some solid pitching to limit a San Diego batting line up that has struggled to fire all year.
The Padres have a 0.218 batting average this season, amongst the lowest in the Major Leagues, but that has fallen to 0.191 while losing 4 of their last 6 games. This is good news for Lance Lynn who will be going to the mound in a bid to erase the memories of a couple of poor pitching performances.
Lynn is 6-1 with a 2.34 ERA this season for St Louis, but he is just 0-1 with a 5.25 ERA in his last couple of outings for them including giving up 4 runs in 6 innings pitched against the LA Dodgers in his last start, although not factoring into the decision.
He will need to play better today as the St Louis Cardinals batting line up will be seeing a former Cardinal in the form of Jeff Suppan. Suppan was a member of the World Series winning team of 2006 and is 4-0 against St Louis since leaving in seven appearances against them, compiling a 2.87 ERA in those games.
Suppan is 2-2 this season with a 3.00 ERA , but a lack of run support has really hindered his chances of getting anything going in the win column. He has been supported by just 6 runs in his last 4 starts, although he has lost his last two outings as much down to his own 4.91 ERA as well as the fact he has been given just 1 run of support.
Head to Head
This is the first series of the season between these teams and they are not due to meet again until September.
St Louis have won their last 3 at home against San Diego, although they are just 4-3 since winning 11 in a row at home against the Padres.
St Louis are 11-8 here this season, San Diego are 4-12 on the road.
Prediction
St Louis have not been playing brilliantly in recent weeks, but that has been much to do with their poor pitching performances rather than their batting line up suddenly falling asleep.
That can be seen from the fact that they have scored at least 4 runs in 9 of their last 10 games, including in the first two games of this series with San Diego, and you have to think that that tally will likely be enough for them to win this game with a bit of room to spare.
Lance Lynn has had a couple of tough outings, but he will appreciate pitching against the Padres batting line up and he spoke positively about his command in the last game with the LA Dodgers and put the earned runs down to good hitting rather than poor pitching.
He has shown enough this season to think he can at least keep the Padres a little quiet, so the 2.10 on offer that the Cardinals win by a couple of runs at the least is my pick.
The Pick :
St Louis Cardinals 5-2 San Diego Padres
FIXED ODDS BETTING TIP :
I'll take the St Louis Cardinals - 1.5 Runs @ 2.10
