{"id":16307,"date":"2011-07-02T08:00:12","date_gmt":"2011-07-02T13:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=16307"},"modified":"2011-07-01T22:30:12","modified_gmt":"2011-07-02T03:30:12","slug":"st-louis-cardinals-at-tampa-bay-rays-pro-baseball-handicapping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/st-louis-cardinals-at-tampa-bay-rays-pro-baseball-handicapping-16307\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Louis Cardinals at Tampa Bay Rays Pro Baseball Handicapping"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays are set to play the second game of their weekend series Saturday at Tropicana Field<\/p>\n

St. Louis Cardinals at Tampa Bay Rays<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The St. Louis Cardinals have won four straight games<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

St. Louis collected a 5-3 victory Friday night over Tampa Bay and moved its interleague record to 8-5 on the season.\u00a0 The Cardinals rank first among National League teams with a .535 winning percentage against American League opponents.\u00a0 The club has\u00a0 now won four straight after dropping 12 of its previous 15 games.\u00a0 With the recent run, the team has been able to hold onto the top spot in the NL Central race depending on Milwaukee\u2019s result against Minnesota.\u00a0 St. Louis has enjoyed nothing but success at Tropicana Field, winning all four games at the domed structure, including a three-game sweep in June 2005.<\/p>\n

Cardinals starting pitcher Kyle McClellan is 6-4 with a 4.02 ERA in 14 appearances (13 starts) this season.\u00a0 The right-hander is searching for his first win since May 19, as he\u2019s lost his last three decisions.\u00a0 McClellan was handed a 5-0 home loss to the Blue Jays last time out, giving up five runs and eight hits over 5 1\/3 innings.\u00a0 He is 0-1 with an 8.44 ERA in one career interleague start, while posting an 0-3 record and 4.55 ERA in 21 relief appearances versus the American League.\u00a0 The 27-year-old has tossed just one relief inning against the Rays, allowing one run and a single hit while issuing two free passes.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay has a losing 19-21 mark at home this season and is 5-7-1 in series play when hosting opponents.\u00a0 The Rays have struggled mightily offensively in St. Petersburg, averaging just 3.10 runs per contest versus 5.24 runs a contest on the road.\u00a0 \u00a0 Last night certainly didn\u2019t change things in collecting just two hits off of opposing starter Jake Wesbrook, ending the contest with three runs on five hits.\u00a0 The club is now 1-3 on its six-game homestand, hitting .147 with runners in scoring position in the last 10 home games.\u00a0 Tampa Bay is still a solid 10-6 during interleague action, ranking fourth in the majors with 75 runs scored in those contests.<\/p>\n

Rays starting pitcher Jeff Niemann is 2-4 with a 5.58 ERA in eight starts this season and will be pitching at home for the first time since May 4.\u00a0 The right-hander received a no-decision in his last outing, giving up five runs and seven hits in just three innings of work, as Tampa Bay picked up a 14-10 road win over Houston.\u00a0 Niemann is winless in four home outings, producing an 0-3 mark and 6.65 ERA, as opponents are hitting .319 against him.\u00a0 He has been solid during the month of July in his career, going 5-2 wit ha 3.79 ERA in 10 outings (nine starts).<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Cardinals due to their 4-1 mark as an interleague underdog, while the Rays are 2-5 in Niemann\u2019s last seven tries as a favorite<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays are set to play the second game of their weekend series Saturday at Tropicana Field St. Louis Cardinals at Tampa Bay Rays St. Louis collected a 5-3 victory Friday night over Tampa Bay and moved its interleague record to 8-5 on the season.\u00a0 The Cardinals rank first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":15541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1943,4867,841,150,1574],"class_list":["post-16307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-jeff-niemann","tag-kyle-mcclellan","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tropicana-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16307","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16308,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16307\/revisions\/16308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}