Baseball Betting Picks: St. Louis Cardinals at Miami Marlins

Added on Jun 25, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

National League action between the struggling Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals on Monday. The Marlins have been in freefall during the month of June though they are coming off a blowout victory over Toronto. The St. Louis Cardinals are looking surprisingly similar to last year’s team–meaning that they’ve gone through the regular season to this point with a decided lack of urgency in their play. They got off to a good start but have been very mediocre ever since.

St. Louis Cardinals at Miami Marlins
June 25, 2012 4:10 PM Pacific

The Marlins beat Toronto 9-0 on Sunday but we’re not going to interpret that as a ‘buy’ sign. This is a team that has lost 11 of their last 14 and 15 of their last 21. They’ll be happy to get back to playing National League teams after going 5-13 in Interleague play. As you’d expect for a team in that form the Marlins have lost a ton of money for their financial backers this year–they’re -10.9 units overall YTD and -8.2 units against opponents with winning records.

The Cardinals have been on a reasonably good run of late winning 7 of their last 11 games. They’re 38-35 on the year and are 2 games out of first place in the NL Central. They’ve cleaned up in games against opponents with losing records going 26-18 for +2.1 units of profit. Coming off a sweep of the Kansas City Royals they look to be poised for another strong effort against a struggling team in this series.

Cardinals will start Jake Westbrook who has put up good numbers this year but hasn’t always received support from his teammates. Westbrook has a 3.83 ERA overall and a 2.93 ERA on the road but St. Louis has lost 8 of his 14 starts YTD. They’ve also lost 4 of his 7 road starts. Miami will counter with Ricky Nolasco who has struggled this season with a 5.16 ERA. He’s been especially bad during the Marlins recent swoon–in his last three starts he’s 0-3 with a bloated 8.81 ERA.

Cardinals are the better team and have been in better form. Miami is better than they’ve been playing of late and may experience a turnaround later in the season. One decisive victory isn’t going to turn us into buyers, however, so until they give us a reason to do otherwise we’ll continue playing against the Marlins.

Bet St. Louis Cardinals (Westbrook) -105 over Miami Marlins (Nolasco)