MLB Betting Preview: Cincinnati Reds at St. Louis Cardinals

Added on Sep 03, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

After a ridiculous flurry of football activity on Thursday night we’ve got very little gridiron action to work with on Friday. As a result, we’ll turn to baseball and take a look at a big NL Central battle between the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals.

Cincinnati Reds (Bronson Arroyo) at St. Louis Cardinals (Jaime Garcia)
September 3, 2010—5:15 PM Pacific

Actually, this *would* have been a big matchup a month or so ago, but with the teams involved headed in different directions lately it’s been robbed of a lot of its urgency. Reds have been playing very good baseball, winning 4 straight and 7 of their last 10. St. Louis, on the other hand, has been struggling with the bottom feeders of the National League—they’ve lost 5 straight and 8 of 9 against Houston, Pittsburgh and Washington. The sum total of this is that Cincinnati enters this weekend series with a beefy eight game lead over the second place Cardinals atop the NL Central.

In theory, this could be a spot where the Cards could make up some ground—they’ve won 10 of 15 meetings this year. However, these teams don’t like each other (witness this all out brawl between the Reds and Cards less than a month ago) and that gives us good reason to think that the Reds will go for the throat here. Not that Cincinnati would be unable to take care of business otherwise—with St. Louis being knocked around by three of the worst hitting teams in the NL they’re not exactly in the form to take on the best.

A comparison of the moneyline records of the teams is ugly—Reds have made a ton of money in most situations. Overall, Cincy is 79-55 +21.2 units and they’re 37-28 +11.5 units on the road. They’re 39-22 +16.3 units and while their record against lefthanders isn’t overwhelming it is profitable—27-18 +7.5 units. St. Louis, by contrast, has lost money in most situations including overall (68-62 -20.2 units) and haven’t even been able to break even at home despite a solid 40-23 record (-0.9 units). That’s a classic indication of a team that has been overpriced all season. Against NL Central foes they’re 31-29 -16.8 units and against RHP they’re 45-40 -10.4 units.

Jamie Garcia has put up nice numbers at home (1.55 ERA) and he hasn’t allowed an earned run in his last 3 starts. Despite this stellar ERA he’s lost money for baseball bettors this year—at home St. Louis is only 6-6 in his starts for a -4.4 unit loss. Bronson Arroyo’s ERA doesn’t look good by comparison (3.87 overall, 3.37 on the road) but the big difference is that when he’s on the hill the Reds usually win. Cincinnati is 17-10 +5.9 units overall in his starts with an 11-3 +9.4 unit record on the road. We’re getting the better team in better form as an underdog, and that’s hard to pass up.

Bet Cincinnati (Arroyo) +125 over St. Louis (Garcia)