MLB Betting Free Picks: St. Louis Cardinals at Houston Astros

Added on Aug 31, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

MLB

We’ve already taken a baseball betting position on one half of the NL Central race in today’s Cincinnati/Milwaukee matchup, and we’ll look at the other half now as St. Louis plays at Houston. Cards have stumbled throughout August and now find themselves 6 games back. Houston got off to their worst start in franchise history and never really recovered, but they’ve been playing good baseball down the stretch and have given many contending teams fits of late.

St. Louis Cardinals (Carpenter) at Houston Astros (Rodriguez)
August 31, 2010—5:05 PM Pacific

Cincinnati has been playing consistent baseball down the stretch, but not exactly dominating. They haven’t needed to be any better than ‘consistent’ since the St. Louis Cardinals have been doing their work for them and are at risk of playing themselves out of the NL Central race. Cards enter this contest having lost 3 straight, 6 of their last 10 and have an August record of 11-14 for a whopping -13.2 unit loss! For a team that has been at or near the division lead for most of the season, the Cards are a very bad betting proposition. They’re something of a streaky, underachieving team that is overvalued by linesmakers more often than not and that’s a dangerous combination. YTD, St. Louis is 68-60 for a -18.4 unit loss!

Houston, on the other hand, has a 60-71 record but that’s translated into +9.7 units of profit. They’ve had a winning August with a 16-12 record which has earned their financial backers a tidy +11.5 units of profit. They’ve been a thorn in the side of their divisional rivals all year with a 34-24 record for +19.6 units of profit. Head to head against St. Louis, they’re 8-5 for a +8.9 unit profit.

Chris Carpenter gets the start here and he’s been solid as ever with a 2.93 ERA. On the road, he’s got a 3.20 ERA but the Cards have only won 7 of his 12 starts. In other words, he’s beatable. Wandy Rodriguez has had his ups and downs this year but has a solid 2.85 ERA at home and has looked very sharp in his recent outings with a 1.80 ERA in his last three assignments.

With the Cards slumping badly and ‘finding ways to lose’, we’ll gladly back a Houston team that has made nice profits against St. Louis this year. Until the Cardinals pull out of this slump, they’re definitely a go against.

Bet Houston (Rodriguez) +135 over St. Louis (Carpenter)