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![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/matt-holliday-cardinals-932.jpg\")
<\/a>Chicago has dropped four of its last five games, including a 4-3 defeat to St. Louis as +206 road underdogs Tuesday, while pushing up against the betting total of 7.\u00a0 The Cubs are now 2-8 in one-run games and 1-5 in extra-inning affairs during the 2014 campaign.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to point out that the squad has totaled 30 hits in splitting the first two games of this series.\u00a0 Chicago is 10-18 as road underdogs of +175 to +200 the last two-plus seasons, with the UNDER going 17-11 in that situation.<\/p>\n
Cubs starting pitcher Jason Hammel (4-1, 2.45 ERA) has watched the club drop his last two trips to the mound, but he hasn\u2019t earned a decision over that span\u2014allowing five runs and 14 hits over 13 combined innings in that period.\u00a0 The right-hander is 2-1 with a 1.95 ERA in four road appearances, with opposing hitters batting just .172 against him.\u00a0 Hammel owns a 1.63 WHIP in going 1-1 with a 5.28 ERA in three career starts versus the Cardinals.<\/p>\n
St. Louis has alternated wins and losses over its last four games, with the OVER going 2-1-1 in that span.\u00a0 The Cardinals\u2019 bullpen has carried a heavy load in the first two games of this series, especially since closer Trevor Rosenthan was unable to hold a one-run lead Tuesday.\u00a0 Offensively, the club is averaging 3.80 runs and hitting .248 over its last 10 contests.\u00a0 St. Louis is 17-9 as home favorites of -175 to -200 since the start of the 2012 campaign.<\/p>\n
Cardinals starting pitcher Michael Wacha (2-3, 2.85 ERA) has watched the franchise fall in defeat in his last five trips to the mound, but he didn\u2019t earn a decision in a 6-4 setback on the road to the Pittsburgh Pirates last time out.\u00a0 The right-hander has tallied a perfect 2-0 record and 3.38 ERA in three home appearances\u2014issuing four walks and striking out 20 batters in 18.2 combined innings.\u00a0 Wacha is 1-1 with a 3.44 ERA in four lifetime appearances versus the Cubs.<\/p>\n
Sports bettors will likely back the Cardinals due to the Cubs being 11-23 in their last 34 division affairs.<\/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 Chicago Cubs (13-25) and St. Louis Cardinals (20-20) will continue a National League series Wednesday night at Busch Stadium, with the first pitch scheduled for 8:15 p.m. ET Chicago Cubs vs. St. Louis Cardinals\u00a0 Chicago has dropped four of its last five games, including a 4-3 defeat to St. Louis as +206 road underdogs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1757,180,1453,7731,1781,841],"class_list":["post-34061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-busch-stadium","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-jason-hammel","tag-michael-wacha","tag-nl-central","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34061","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=34061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34062,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34061\/revisions\/34062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}