The Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals meet in an NL Central division matchup in MLB action from Busch Stadium on Saturday.
The Cincinnati Reds will be out to build off of their 4-2 win over the Giants from Thursday. Joey Votto and Eugenio Suarez each had a solo home run while Jose Barrero had a pair of hits with a double as well as an RBI and DeLino DeShields each chipped in wile an RBI to cap off Cincinnati’s scoring as a team in the win. Tyler Mahle allowed two runs on four hits while striking out six, not factoring in the decision. Michael Lorenzen got the win in relief to improve to 1-2 while Mychal Givens closed the 9th for his 2nd save of the season. Luis Castillo will start for Cincinnati and is 7-15 with a 4.20 ERA and 166 strikeouts this season.
The St. Louis Cardinals will look to rebound from their loss at the hands of the Reds on Friday. Yadier Molina’s two-run home run was going to be the lone scoring that the Cards would plate in the losing effort. Dylan Carlson, Tommy Edman and Harrison Bader all had base hits as well as a team in the loss. Jon Lester threw tseven innings, allowing just two earned runs on three hits. Miles Mikolas will start this game and is 0-2 with a 5.06 ERA and 17 strikeouts this season.
Cincinnati is 3-8 in their last 11 games overall and 1-4 in their last 5 games as a road favorite while the under is 4-0 in their last 4 games on grass. St. Louis is 4-9 in their last 13 games against a left-handed starter while the under is 6-1-2 in their last 9 home games.
Both of these teams have starting pitching in this matchup that makes this a tough get to call with so much at stake for both clubs. That’s why I’m siding with the under here. As much as Castillo and Mikolas have burned me this season, both teams are playing really well defensively and I think this could be a spot where both teams take a defense first approach to make this a tight series as expected. Give me the under here.