![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Andrew-McCutchen-pirates-719.jpg\")
<\/a>Pittsburgh will wake up today and wish it was still June, winning 17 games in a month for the first time since August 2007, while leading the NL with 39 home runs.\u00a0 The Pirates have won a season-high four straight games, scoring 37 runs over that span.\u00a0 Star outfielder Andrew McCutchen has played a major part in the team\u2019s recent success, but will likely sit in this affair after spraining his left wrist in Saturday\u2019s 7-3 victory.\u00a0 Pittsburgh is 10-8 as a road underdog of +125 to +150.<\/p>\n
Pirates starting pitcher Erik Bedard (4-8, 4.27) has watched the club drop his last three efforts, including a 5-4 road setback to the Philadelphia Phillies last time out, giving up four runs and eight hits over six frames.\u00a0 The left-hander is 2-6 with a 6.23 ERA in eight road outings, as opposing hitters are batting .298 against him.\u00a0 In two career starts versus the Cardinals, Bedard has tallied an even 1-1 record and 3.00 ERA, issuing six walks and striking out 18 batters in 12 innings.<\/p>\n
St. Louis has finished the last two months with a losing record, which includes a 13-14 record in June, as the club sits in third place in the division.\u00a0 The Cardinals are now focused on avoiding a three-game sweep at home to the Pirates for the first time since May 1991.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that the club is 19-15 against divisional foes in 2012, while splitting the first eight games in this season series.\u00a0 St. Louis is 7-16 when playing a team with a winning record.<\/p>\n
Cardinals starting pitcher Jake Westbrook (6-6, 3.77 ERA) has led the club to three consecutive wins, but he didn\u2019t factor into the decision of an 8-7 road win over the Miami Marlins last time out.\u00a0 The right-hander is 3-2 with a 4.83 ERA in seven home outings, as opposing hitters are batting .308 against him.\u00a0 In 10 career games (six starts) versus the Pirates, Westbrook has tallied an 0-5 record and 5.06 ERA, including a 0-2 mark and 4.15 ERA in two such outings this season.<\/p>\n
Bettors will likely back the Cardinals due to their 9-4 record when the total is 9 to 9.5, while the Pirates are 0-4 in Bedard\u2019s last four tries as a road underdog.<\/p>\n
Make sure to check out our Major League Baseball picks<\/a> all season long and get the most up-to-date betting odds at Bookmaker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Pittsburgh Pirates (42-35) and St. Louis Cardinals (40-38) will close out a three-game National League Central series on Sunday afternoon at Busch Stadium, with the first pitch scheduled for 2:15 ET Pittsburgh Pirates at St. Louis Cardinals Pittsburgh will wake up today and wish it was still June, winning 17 games in a month […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[2429,1757,929,2400,2324,428,841],"class_list":["post-23500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-andrew-mccutchen","tag-busch-stadium","tag-erik-bedard","tag-jake-westbrook","tag-national-league-central","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23500","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=23500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23501,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23500\/revisions\/23501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}