Saint Louis Cardinals (37-26) AT Houston Astros (24-38)
June 9, 2011 at 8:05 PM EST
Opening Line:  STL -125, HOU +105
Current Line:  STL -114, HOU -105
Opening Total: 8.5
Current Total:  8.5

SP- STL: Lance Lynn; HOU: J.A. Happ

Houston came out to surprise the Cardinals on Wednesday night when Bud Norris carried a no hitter into the 7th inning, before allowing a Lance Berkman home run.  It was the only run that the Cardinals scored, as Norris improved to 4-4 on the year.

Lance Berkman compared Norris to Roger Clemens “with his aggressiveness and mound presence…That’s about as high of praise as I can give somebody.”

Mark Melancon picked up the save opportunity in the win and it snapped a four game Cardinals’ winning streak.

Tony La Russa didn’t see any mystery in the loss.  “We got outplayed and outpitched, so they won the game.”  It really doesn’t boil down to much less than that does it, La Russa?

Since his win against the Mets on May 14th, J.A. Happ has gone 0-3, despite a fairly decent 3.13 ERA over that stretch.  Over his last four appearances he is receiving 1.75 runs per game.  He gave up only 3 runs in 6 innings last Friday against the Padres, but once again the Astros provided him with only 1 run.

At home, Happ is 1-1 against the Cardinals with a 1.29 ERA.  He threw a 2-hitter in the 3-0 shutout on August 30th.  It was only Happ’s third career shutout.

Lance Lynn hopes to improve on his disgusting 8.44 ERA for Houston.  He’s only making his second major league start.  On Thursday against the Giants he retired the first 10 batters and then proceeded to give up 5 runs in the next 5 1/3rds inning, the reason for his ERA, of course.  He was just happy to put the debut behind him.  “I felt good and it’s good to get it (his first game) under my belt.”

Lynn, despite his impressive frame, does not really rely on power.  He capped off his minor league career last year with a 16 strikeout game, but his fastball is in the low 90s.  Baseball Prospectus compared his upside to that of a “fourth starter,” so we’ll see how accurate that prediction may stand to be given that this is only his second major league start.   Baseball Prospectus also predicted a 4.39 ERA, but it’s way too early to guess if that is any where near correct, either.

Some betting trends:

The Saint Louis Cardinals are 4-1 SU in their last 5 games and the total has gone OVER in 15 of their last 23 on the road.  The Cardinals are 7-3 SU in their last 10 on the road, while they have gone 5-1 SU in their last 6 in Houston.  The total has gone OVER in 4 of the Cardinals’ last 5 games on the road against the Houston Astros.

Houston is 1-4 SU in their last 5 games and the total has gone OVER in 4 of their last 6 games.  It has also gone OVER in 8 of their last 11 at home and the Astros are 1-4 SU in their last 5 at home.  The Astros are 1-5 SU in their last 6 games against the Saint Louis Cardinals and the total has gone OVER in 4 of the last 5 home games against Saint Louis.

Given Happ’s success against the Cardinals last season, Houston looks good as an underdog bet in this game.  Lynn is still inexperienced and it could leave the Cardinals vulnerable.  This is all of course assuming that Happ gets any run support at all…