Cincinnati Reds vs. St. Louis Cardinals MLB Picks, Odds, Predictions 6/3/2021

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

The Cincinnati Reds will look to bounce back from a loss in a 17-3 rout against Philadelphia on Tuesday, but their chance at redemption was put off on Wednesday due to a postponement. Tyler Naquin had a home run and two RBIs while Mike Freeman had an RBI as well to cap off the scoring for the Reds in the defeat. Nick Castellanos went 2 for 3 with a double while Jonathan India, Alex Blandino, Kyle Farmer, Tyler Stephenson and Eugenio Suarez each had a base hit to cap off the offense for the Reds in defeat. Sonny Gray took the loss, falling to 1-4 on the year after allowing three runs on six hits while striking out eight over 4.2 innings of work. Vladimir Gutierrez will start here and is 0-1 with a 1.80 ERA and 3 strikeouts this season. This will be Gutierrez’s first career start against St. Louis.

The St. Louis Cardinals will try to rebound from a 14-3 loss at the hands of the Dodgers on Thursday. Paul Goldschmidt and Dylan Carlson each had a solo home run while Nolan Arenado added a double and an RBI to round out the scoring for the Cardinals in the losing effort. Eduardo Sosa, Andrew Knizner and Tyler O’Neill each had a base hit as well to cap off the offense for the Cardinals in the defeat. Carlos Martinez took the loss, falling to 3-5 on the year after allowing ten earned runs on six hits while failing to get out of the first inning. Adam Wainwright will start here and is 3-4 with a 4.22 ERA and 57 strikeouts this season. In his career, Wainwright is 10-14 with a 5.35 ERA and 142 strikeouts against Cincinnati.

Cincinnati is 1-7 in their last 8 games against a team with a winning record and 1-4 in their last 5 division games while the under is 5-1 in their last 6 games as a road underdog. St. Louis is 5-1 in their last 6 games as a home favorite and 20-8 in their last 28 Thursday games while the under is 6-2-1 in their last 9 division games. The over is 5-1-2 in the last 8 meetings between these two teams.

I’ve had a hard time trying to figure out Adam Wainwright as he’s alternating good starts and bad starts, so if that pattern holds up this should be a good start for Wainwright. However, the Cards just got their butts whooped by the Dodgers on Wednesday night and had to travel home for this game while the Reds had Wednesday off after their postponement. Gutierrez also looked good in his debut, so I’ll take a shot with the Reds in this one.