MLB Betting Free Picks: St. Louis @ Arizona

Added on Jun 13, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

With plenty of Interleague baseball betting on the board at sportsbooks for Sunday, we’ll change course a bit and look at the only National League game. The St. Louis Cardinals wrap up a three game series at Arizona with the teams splitting the first two. St. Louis is 1 1/2 games back of Cincinnati for the NL Central lead, while Arizona is deep in the NL West basement battling with Houston and Pittsburgh for the worst record in the National League.

St. Louis Cardinals (Chris Carpenter) at Arizona Diamondbacks (Edwin Jackson)
June 13, 1:10 PM Pacific

Albert Pujols is listed as ‘questionable’ for this game (rest) but even without him this could be a mismatch based on the pitching alone. Chris Carpenter has been solid all season long with a 2.54 ERA and has allowed only 2 earned runs in his last three starts. The Cardinals have won 10 of his 13 assignments this year. The D-Backs’ Edwin Jackson has the exact opposite record–Arizona has lost 10 of his 13 starts and he checks in with a 5.51 ERA. In head to head action, St. Louis has beaten Arizona in 6 of 8 Carpenter starts while Arizona is 0-3 against the Cards when Jackson is on the hill.

From a betting perspective, Arizona has been one of the worst investments in baseball so far this season having lost backers -12.6 units. They’ve got the worst team ERA in baseball (5.51) and the bullpen has been horrible with a 7.37 ERA (6.37 at home). St. Louis has won 11 of the last 18 meetings between the two teams and with Cincinnati hosting a struggling Kansas City team they need to get the win here to keep pace. With their ace on the hill, they’ve got a great chance of doing just that.

Bet St. Louis (Carpenter) -145 over Arizona (Jackson)