Pittsburgh Pirates vs. Cincinnati Reds – 9/5/20 MLB Pick, Odds, and Prediction

The Cincinnati Reds and the Pittsburgh Pirates meet in an NL Central division matchup in MLB action from PNC Park on Saturday.

The Cincinnati Reds will look to rebound after failing to sweep the double-header against Pittsburgh on Friday, winning game one by a final score of 4-2 followed by a 4-3 loss in the second half of the double dip. In game one, Nick Castellanos had a solo homer and Mike Moutsakas had a double while Eugenio Suarez, Jesse Winker and Jose Garcia each had RBIs. In game two, Suarez had a two-run home run and Moustakas added a solo home run to finish off Cincy’s scoring as a team in the loss. Game one saw Luis Castillo pick up the win after allowing two earned runs in six innings of work to improve his record to 1-5 while Trevor Bauer took the loss in game two, allowing one earned run with 7 strikeouts over six innings of work. Anthony DeSclafani will start here and is 1-2 with a 7.71 ERA and 14 strikeouts this season. In his career, DeSclafani is 2-7 with a 5.35 ERA and 62 strikeouts against Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Pirates will try to build off of a win in the second half of the double-header last time out. In game one, Gregory Polanco and Colin Moran each had an RBI while going 2 for 3 at the dish with Polanco adding a pair of doubles while game two saw Anthony Alford belt home a double and two RBIs. Steven Brault ended up with the loss on the bump for the Pirates in game one while game two saw Sam Howard pick up the win in relief of Cody Ponce to improve to 2-1 on the year. Richard Rodriguez got the save, his 3rd of the season. Trevor Williams will start here and is 1-5 with a 5.50 ERA and 32 strikeouts this season. In his career, Williams is 6-2 with a 3.13 ERA and 46 strikeouts against Cincinnati.

Cincinnati is 1-5 in their last 6 games against a team with a winning percentage below .400 while the under is 6-1 in their last 7 road games. Pittsburgh is 6-13 in their last 19 home games and 16-35 in their last 51 games overall while the over is 9-2 in their last 11 Saturday games.

We saw lower scoring games on Friday, but I’m chalking that up to the seven-inning double-header games as the main factor for that coming in. As far as Saturday’s matchup goes, DeSclafani’s first start against Pittsburgh saw him give up nine goals in two innings of work, and Trevor Williams has also been shaky as of late over on Pittsburgh’s side. I’ll side with the over as my free play for this game, but my stronger pick is on the side and I have that available as a premium pick that you can find here.