The Angels and Cardinals prepare for Game 2 of an interleague clash, with both scheduled starters looking to turn around their season.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Angels at St. Louis Cardinals<\/strong><\/p>\n Los Angeles struggled to shut down St. Louis\u2019 offense in the first three innings on Friday night, ultimately falling, 9-5, in the first game of the series.\u00a0 The Angels started the year 4-2 on the road, but are now 4-11 in their last 15 road games (-320 overall).\u00a0 One of the main problems for the team offensively is producing extra-base hits, as the team has just 123 compared to 168 by their opponents this season.\u00a0 The starting rotation has been the team\u2019s main barometer in the first 44 games this season, posting a 1.70 ERA in 20 wins and a 7.65 ERA in 24 losses.\u00a0 The Angels are in the middle of a stretch of playing 21 of 27 games on the road, as they will fly the most air miles of any team in 2010 (50,509).<\/p>\n Angels SP Scott Kazmir has dropped three consecutive starts with a 7.71 ERA over that span.\u00a0 The left-hander is set to make just his second career start against the Cardinals, as he allowed two runs in just four innings of work in a 2005 matchup as a member of Tampa Bay.\u00a0 Kazmir is also 0-3 with a 7.59 ERA in four road starts this season (-400), allowing 41 runners to reach base in 21.1 innings of work.\u00a0 His early season struggles are nothing new, coming in with a 31-33 record and 4.44 ERA in 89 career starts before the All-Star break.\u00a0 He also brings in a 5-3 record and 4.83 ERA in 13 interleague starts in his young career.<\/p>\n St. Louis has relied on its starting staff early in the season, coming into Saturday\u2019s contest with a 2.91 combined ERA, trailing only Tampa Bay\u2019s 2.61.\u00a0 Four of the starters that make up the rotation have sub-3.00 ERAs, with today\u2019s starter Kyle Lohse (1-3, 5.11) being the exception.\u00a0 The Cardinals are now 4-3 all-time against the Angels in interleague play and have gone 10-6 in their last 16 games overall against the American League.\u00a0 A concern for manager Tony LaRussa has been his team\u2019s inability to put the ball in play.\u00a0 The Cardinals have averaged 7.2 strikeouts-per-game, after averaging just 6.4 times last year.<\/p>\n Lohse has a good chance of turning his season around with a start at Busch Stadium.\u00a0 The right-hander is 14-8 with a 3.41 ERA in 35 home starts since joining the Cardinals in 2008.\u00a0 He leaves a lot to be desired with this career numbers against Los Angeles standing at a 3-2 record and 6.08 ERA in seven appearances.\u00a0 St. Louis has compiled an even 4-4 record in his eight starts this season (-200), including a 3-2 mark at home (-100).\u00a0 He\u2019s pitched well in three daytime starts despite carrying a 0-2 record, mainly due to his control of issuing just a single walk in 18 innings of work.<\/p>\n Despite a 6-7 daytime record this season (-70), the Angels mark of 74-33 (4,188) can\u2019t be ignored.\u00a0 Los Angeles has shown absolutely no betting value when facing right-handed pitchers this season (14-14).<\/p>\n Bettors may run to the windows and bet the over in this contest due to the well-known struggles for the starting pitchers in this matchup.\u00a0 They must proceed with caution in playing the over, as the under is currently 5-14 in Cardinals\u2019 home games (13-28 in all games).\u00a0 The under is also 5-1 in the Angels\u2019 last five games as a road underdog of +125 to +150.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Angels and Cardinals prepare for Game 2 of an interleague clash, with both scheduled starters looking to turn around their season. Los Angeles Angels at St. Louis Cardinals Los Angeles struggled to shut down St. Louis\u2019 offense in the first three innings on Friday night, ultimately falling, 9-5, in the first game of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444],"tags":[1556,479,91,841],"class_list":["post-3492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-kyle-lohse","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-scott-kazmir","tag-st-louis-cardinals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492","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=3492"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3495,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492\/revisions\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}