Game Information
St. Louis Cardinals (44-38) at Cleveland Guardians (40-39)
Time: 6:10pm CT Friday
How to watch: Apple TV+
Probable pitchers: Sonny Gray (7-2, 3.72 ERA) vs Luis L. Ortiz (4-8, 4.30 ERA)
DraftKings Odds
Moneyline: Cardinals -132, Guardians +109
Total: 8.5 (over -116, under -104)
Cards Head To Cleveland
The St. Louis Cardinals begin a nine-game road trip tonight in Cleveland against the Guardians.
The Cards are coming off a split of a four-game series with the Cubs, leaving them 4.5 games behind Chicago in the NL Central and 1 game behind the Padres for the final NL Wild Card spot.
Cardinals Look To Get Bats Rolling
The Redbirds have been shut out in back-to-back games and have failed to score a run in their last 22 innings. Hopefully it was just a case of struggling against left-handers, which is their weaker split (.674 team OPS is 16th in MLB). The Cardinals will face a right-hander tonight, and the Birds are 8th in MLB with a .738 OPS against righties.
Sonny Gray takes the ball looking to improve on his road numbers. Gray has a 5.88 ERA in 5 away starts this season, and he has a 4.96 ERA in 9 career starts at this ballpark.
Guardians Not Scoring
The Guardians head into this series really struggling offensively. They were shut out by the Blue Jays 6-0 yesterday, and during the month of June, they are 9-13 and averaging just 3.0 runs per game.
Luis L. Ortiz will be on the bump tonight looking to build off an outstanding start against the Athletics in his last outing where he went 6 shutout innings with just 2 hits, 2 walks, and 10 strikeouts. Ortiz has also been very good at home with an ERA of 3.00 this season.
My Pick
I’m going to head to the player prop market and fade Carlos Santana. The Guardians first baseman is ice cold in the month of June with a .169 average and a .479 OPS, and I have a hard time believing he’s going to snap out of his funk against Gray.
Santana has 27 at-bats against Gray in his career, and he’s hitting .148 with no home runs and a .406 OPS.
So I like Santana to go under 1.5 hits + runs + RBIs at -140, which is a little more juice than I prefer. So I’m going to combine that with the Milwaukee Brewers to beat the lowly Colorado Rockies tonight, and that gives you a really attractive plus money price.
Pick: Parlay priced at +147 on DraftKings - Carlos Santana under 1.5 Hits + Runs + RBIs AND Brewers on the moneyline against the Rockies (bet to +130)
Eric Sontag hosts Domesticated Gamblers every Friday on the STL Sports Central YouTube channel. Follow him on X @GamblingDads, and click here for his daily picks on all of our St. Louis area sports teams. Picks = betting the game - minus odds betting to win 1 unit, plus odds risking 1 unit. Leans = no strong opinion, not betting the game. Disclaimer