{"id":15279,"date":"2011-05-04T13:33:19","date_gmt":"2011-05-04T18:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15279"},"modified":"2011-05-04T13:33:19","modified_gmt":"2011-05-04T18:33:19","slug":"major-league-baseball-handicapping-preview-florida-marlins-at-saint-louis-cardinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/major-league-baseball-handicapping-preview-florida-marlins-at-saint-louis-cardinals-15279\/","title":{"rendered":"Major League Baseball Handicapping Preview: Florida Marlins at Saint Louis Cardinals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florida Marlins (18-10) AT Saint Louis Cardinals (17-13)<\/strong>
\nMay 4, 2011 at 8:15 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 STL -200, FLA +170<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 STL -188, FLA +178<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 7.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 7.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

SP:\u00a0 FLA- Javier Vazquez (R), STL- Chris Carpenter (R)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Chris Carpenter was projected to have a 3.21 ERA by Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Matt Holliday has come along to save a struggling Cardinals’ offense by hitting a league best .409.\u00a0 He went 2 of 5 on Tuesday while hitting his 4th homer of the season and extending his hitting streak to 9 games.\u00a0 It was Daniel Descalso’s hit that saved the day, however, as he hit his first career homer to give the Cardinals the 7-5 victory over the Marlins.<\/p>\n

Descalso downplayed the home run, commenting “I’m not a big home run guy.\u00a0 I just go up there and try to put a line drive swing on it, and every once in a while they jump out of the park.”<\/p>\n

Still, for as bad as Albert Pujols has been, the Cardinals still lead the majors in runs scored with 161 (5.36 a game) and as a team they are hitting .293.\u00a0 Pujols went 0 of 5 on Tuesday and his average is now a lowly .231.\u00a0 He hasn’t had an extra base hit in the last nine games.<\/p>\n

Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa was encouraging of the struggling MVP.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cAs long as he doesn\u2019t get discouraged,\u201d La Russa said. \u201cHe\u2019ll be fine because he\u2019s smart and tough-minded. He won\u2019t allow himself to be less than his best.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Marlins are going to send Javier Vazquez to the mound.\u00a0 He’s 2-2 on the season but has a pathetic 6.39 ERA.\u00a0 He hasn’t been his usual overpowering self and gave up 4 runs, 4 hits in 6 innings while fanning 3.\u00a0 He did hit well though, going 2 for 2 with 1 RBI.\u00a0 It’s a rare contribution from pitchers, but Dusty Baker has come to expect it from him.<\/p>\n

Chris Carpenter takes the mound for the Cardinals.\u00a0 His last outing he gave up 3 runs and 10 hits in 7 innings, still a quality start, and the Cards won the game 5-3 in 11 innings.\u00a0 In his last 2 starts against the Florida Marlins he is 0-1 with a 5.25 ERA.\u00a0 Carpenter was projected to have a 9-5 record with a 3.27 ERA.\u00a0 He’s within range of that, but will need to get more run production when he pitches to get a better record.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER in 5 of Florida’s last 6 games and the Marlins are 13-5 SU in their last 18 games.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 4 of the Marlins’ last 5 on the road and the Marlins are 6-3 SU in their last 9 games against the St. Louis Cardinals.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 7 of Florida’s last 10 games on the road against the Cardinals while the Marlins are 4-2 SU in their last 6 road games against the Cardinals.<\/p>\n

St. Louis is 5-2 SU in their last 7 games and the total has gone OVER in 7 of their last 8 games. St. Louis is 5-2 SU in their last 7 home games and the Cardinals are 3-6 SU in their last 9 games against the Florida Marlins.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 7 of the Cardinals’ last 10 games at home against the Marlins while the Cardinals are 2-4 SU in their last 6 games at home against Florida.<\/p>\n

Given Javier Vasquez’ struggles it’s easy to see why the Cardinals are favored in this game.\u00a0 Carpenter has pitched well enough that the Cards should be able to provide him enough run production for him to record a victory tonight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Marlins (18-10) AT Saint Louis Cardinals (17-13) May 4, 2011 at 8:15 PM EST Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 STL -200, FLA +170 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 STL -188, FLA +178 Opening Total:\u00a0 7.5 Current Total:\u00a0 7.5 SP:\u00a0 FLA- Javier Vazquez (R), STL- Chris Carpenter (R) Matt Holliday has come along to save a struggling Cardinals’ offense by hitting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":4435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[130,4834],"class_list":["post-15279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-florida-marlins","tag-saint-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15279","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=15279"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15281,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15279\/revisions\/15281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}