{"id":14829,"date":"2011-04-11T13:30:46","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T18:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14829"},"modified":"2011-04-11T13:30:46","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T18:30:46","slug":"pujols-in-the-desert-saint-louis-cardinals-travel-to-arizona-to-play-the-diamondbacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/pujols-in-the-desert-saint-louis-cardinals-travel-to-arizona-to-play-the-diamondbacks-14829\/","title":{"rendered":"Pujols in the Desert: Saint Louis Cardinals Travel to Arizona to Play the Diamondbacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saint Louis Cardinals (3-6) AT Arizona Diamondbacks (4-4)<\/strong>
\nOpening Runline:\u00a0 ARI -1.5 +170, STL +1.5 -200<\/strong>
\nCurrent Runline:\u00a0 ARI -1.5 +200, STL +1.5 -240<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Ari -120 \/ Stl +100<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Stl -117 \/ Ari +107<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 9.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 9.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 Stl- K. McClellan \/ Ari- B. Enright<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Pujols is struggling badly so far and struggled last season against the Diamondbacks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Cardinals are off to their worst start since the 1997 season when they opened 3-8, and a large part of it can be attributed to the fact that their best player in Albert Pujols is not producing at the same level he has been in recent years.\u00a0 His batting average is .143 with one home run, and four RBIs.\u00a0 His .143 is the lowest he has started for the first 9 games in his career, as you might expect.\u00a0 He went 0 for 5 in the win against the Giants on Sunday and hit into his 6th double play of the season (he did it only 23 times all of last season).<\/p>\n

Cardinals pitcher Kyle Lohse is not really concerned about the early struggles.\u00a0 \u201cYou can\u2019t get too worried about the way things are going this early,\u201d\u00a0 said Lohse after picking up the win on Sunday. \u201cObviously you don\u2019t want it to turn into a trend. Most of us have been around long enough to know it\u2019s not going to last forever. We just have to weather the storm and get through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Pujols, he is traveling to a stadium in which he has a bad track record.\u00a0 In his 6 games against Arizona last season he hit just .213, though he did record 3 home runs.<\/p>\n

While the Cardinals are not getting production from Pujols, they did receive in a boon in Matt Holiday’s return to the lineup.\u00a0 He scored the go ahead run and hit an RBI single.<\/p>\n

Cardinals’ starter Kyle McClellan gave up only 2 runs in his season opener and struck out 7 in 6 innings.\u00a0 He has replaced Adam Wainright, who suffered a season ending injury, in the rotation.\u00a0 However, much like Pujols, McClellan has struggled in Arizona, where he posted an 11.00 ERA last season while going 0-2.\u00a0 McClellan’s PECOTA projection for 2011 is for just a 3-1 record with a 3.75 ERA.\u00a0 Now, as a starter, if he can manage to extend that 3.75 projected ERA into starting roles, he could be in line for a lot of wins this season.<\/p>\n

Diamondbacks’ starter Barry Enright struggled in his opener, though, too.\u00a0 He gave up 4 runs and 7 hits in 6 innings as the Diamondbacks went on to lose 6-5 to Chicago.\u00a0 It will be his first start against Saint Louis since his major league debut in June, when he allowed only one run, four hits, and four walks in 5 innings while the ‘Backs secured a 4-2 win.\u00a0 Enright’s PECOTA predicts a 6-9 record with a 5.54 ERA.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Saint Louis is 2-4 in their last 6 games and the total has gnoe UNDER in 6 of their last 7.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 10 of their last 15 on the road and the Cardinals are 7-15 SU in their last 22 road games.\u00a0 The Cardinals are 12-6 SU in their last 18 games against the Diamondbacks and the Cardinals are 6-12 SU in their last 18 on ther road against the Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER In 4 of Arizona’s last 5 games.\u00a0 Arizona is 4-1 SU in their last 5 at home and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of their last 6 against the Saint Louis Cardinals.\u00a0 Arizona is 12-6 SU in their last 18 at home against the Cardinals.<\/p>\n

HOT HITTERS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saint Louis:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Colby Rasmus:\u00a0 .355 BA, 1 HR<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arizona:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Miguel Montero: .500 BA (13 for 26), 2 HR, 4 RBI<\/strong><\/p>\n

Willie Bloomquist: .394 BA (13 for 33), 1 HR, 5 RBI<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Cardinals are off to a bad start but since betting has opened the line has shifted into their favor.\u00a0 Pujols must hit for the Cardinals to have a good chance at winning and his struggles in Arizona are worrysome for the Cardinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saint Louis Cardinals (3-6) AT Arizona Diamondbacks (4-4) Opening Runline:\u00a0 ARI -1.5 +170, STL +1.5 -200 Current Runline:\u00a0 ARI -1.5 +200, STL +1.5 -240 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Ari -120 \/ Stl +100 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Stl -117 \/ Ari +107 Opening Total:\u00a0 9.5 Current Total:\u00a0 9.5 SP:\u00a0 Stl- K. McClellan \/ Ari- B. Enright The Cardinals are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":5041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[196,50,4834],"class_list":["post-14829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-albert-pujols","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-saint-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14831,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14829\/revisions\/14831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}