MLB Baseball Picks: St. Louis Cardinals at Colorado Rockies

Added on Jul 30, 2012 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

For much of last season the St. Louis Cardinals were criticized for a ‘lack of urgency’. They seemed to tread water for most of the season before going on a furious run at the end of the campaign that would eventually culminate in an improbable World Series victory. Could it be ‘deja vu all over again?’ The Cards have won 7 of their last 10 and have crept to within 7.5 games of NL East leading Washington and are 4 games back of second place Atlanta. They’ve got a good chance to pick up some wins this week as they head to Denver for a three game set against the Colorado Rockies.

St. Louis Cardinals at Colorado Rockies
July 31, 2012 5:40 PM Pacific

It’s hard to get a read on the St. Louis Cardinals. They’ve won 7 of their last 10 but enter this game off of back to back losses to the Chicago Cubs. They’ve been decent during the month of July going 14-10 but have been a money loser in most situational spots. They’ll definitely have the starting pitching edge here as they send the dependable veteran Kyle Lohse to the hill. Lohse has a solid 2.71 ERA this year and the Cardinals have won 14 of his 21 starts including 6 of 11 on the road.

Credit to Colorado starter Jeff Francis who has come in to a no win situation for a pitcher and performed admirably. Francis’ ERA (4.97) may not look like much but he’s made an impact on the bottom line–the Rockies have won 8 of his 10 starts this year including 3 of 4 at home. Now that bad news–the Rockies have lost 11 of their last 14 games. To underscore how solid Francis has been note that all three of the Rockies wins in that stretch came in his starts. The last time Colorado won a game with a pitcher other than Francis starting was back on July 13. With all due respect to Francis, we don’t expect him to fare well against a Cardinals team that has hit left handed pitching well this year. St. Louis is 19-11 +4.9 units against southpaws hitting .290 and averaging 5.8 runs per game. Ultimately Francis makes this game a good opportunity to take the Cards against a Rockies team that has lost -22 units for their financial backers this year.

Bet St. Louis Cardinals (Lohse) -135 over Colorado Rockies (Francis)