Play on St Louis

Record: 18-24, +0.87


Today's play will be on St Louis who play in Houston tonight.

The Cardinals send John Smoltz(3-6, 6.22) tonight. After being injured he has started only 13 games this season so far. After a nice start he struggled allowing a bunch of runs, but in his last 5 games he seems to have found his going again lowering his ERA from 8.32 to 6.22 during those 5 games. Although he went just 1-1 in that span his team won 4 of those 5. His career ERA against Houston is also very good at 2.98. He will be opposed to Bud Morris(5-3, 5.07). The rookie played very well in his last 3 starts. In his lone start against St Louis he shut them down over 7 innings. But now they know him a bit better. He piches well, but allows far too many walks, almost one in every two innings.

Should work well for St Louis that came back after losing 5 of six, they now won 3 of their last 4. They are also only two games away from the NL Central title. That gives them a little extra motivation. They own a 43-31 road record which is very good and they scored 18 runs in the first two games against Houston. The Astros team on the other side is the main reason for the pick here. They lost nine in a row and seem to have packed the season in. Firing the coach hasn't worked well, too. Often a team gets a boost when there's a new coach but that wasn't the case here with interim manager Dave Clark losing both being blown out in both games. They will have a day of rest tomorrow where they can get things together for their last ten games. Today they probably want to just get the game over.

With that said the pick will be on St Louis at 1.81 or -123 with 2 units. Good Luck.

DG