MLB Picks

St. Louis Cardinals vs. Cincinnati Reds – 8/21/20 MLB Pick, Odds, and Prediction


2020-08-21 20:15:00 EDT

The Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals meet in an NL Central division matchup from Busch Stadium on Friday night.

The Cincinnati Reds will try to rebound from a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to St. Louis on Thursday night. Mike Moustakas went 1 for 3 with a double and two RBIs while Freddy Galvis added a solo home run and Joey Votto went 2 for 5 with a double as well. Jesse Winker, Eugenio Suarez, Shogo Akiyama and Tucker Barnhart all chipped in base hits as well to finish off the offense for Cincinnati in the losing effort. Sonny Gray allowed two runs on four hits while striking out six over six innings of work, not factoring in the decision. Raisel Iglesias ended up with the loss, falling to 1-2 on the year. In his career, DeSclafani is 7-3 with a 3.08 ERA and 78 strikeouts against St. Louis.

The St. Louis Cardinals will try to build on their solid post-COVID run after rallying to beat the Reds on Thursday. Yadier Molina went 2 for 4 with three RBIs while Kolten Wong had an RBI and Tommy Edman had a double. Brad Miller, Tyler O’Neill and Dexter Fowler each had a base knock as well to round out the Cardinals’ offense as a team in the victory. Adam Wainwright threw seven innings, giving up just two runs on six hits while striking out four, not factoring in the decision. Seth Elledge got the win here to improve to 1-0 on the year in relief. Dakota Hudson will start here and is 0-2 with a 5.40 ERA and 7 strikeouts this season. In his career, Hudson is 3-0 with a 3.71 ERA and 15 strikeouts against Cincinnati.

Cincinnati is 2-7 in their last 9 games against a right-handed starter and 4-1 in their last 5 games as a road favorite while the over is 7-1 in their last 8 games within the division. St. Louis is 2-5 in their last 7 home games and 0-4 in their last 4 games as a home underdog while the over is 8-3 in their last 11 games within the division. Cincinnati is 1-4 in the last 5 meetings between these two teams.

I’m trying to find an angle here where Cincinnati being favored makes sense and all I can see is that Hudson’s struggled early on for St. Louis while DeSclafani has had career success against the Cards, but St. Louis has all of the momentum after rallying to win in walk-off fashion on Thursday night and the Cardinals have just gotten the better of Cincinnati over the years. I just think that Cincinnati’s been far more disappointing than what the Cardinals have brought forth so far, and we’ve seen these teams come out of the COVID stoppage and go on a fairly decent run. Give me St. Louis and the even money here.

Chris Ruffolo's Free Pick: St. Louis +100

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Chris Ruffolo

Chris joined the Sports Chat Place team in August 2016 and has a proven system that combines multiple analytical and situational statistics and trends to give out thousands of winning picks over the last three years with winning records across all of the top leagues, Follow Chris Ruffolo on Twitter @ruffthepickdawg

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