The rivalry continues on Saturday in the second-to-last head-to-head matchup of the regular season between the Cubs and the Cardinals with St. Louis fighting to earn a playoff spot and Chicago coasting to the postseason.
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ODDS ANALYSIS
While this series is essentially meaningless for the Cubs given they’ve already clinched the NL East and have a significant lead for home field advantage, but rivalries like this one always carry a bit of extra motivation.
Over the first 16 games of this season series, these two teams are knotted up at eight games apiece though it’s the Cubs with a 20-run advantage, winning the blowouts against the Cards, but losing the one-run affairs.
The Cubs took two of three in Busch Stadium the last time these teams met, but St. Louis has played better ball away from home this year. They’re 5-2 against the Cubs at Wrigley Field and are 46-30 on the road overall.
PROBABLE PITCHERS
The Cubs have moved Mike Montgomery back to the bullpen after he was inserted in the rotation originally to replace an injured John Lackey and then to help give the arms an extra day’s rest.
Montgomery, however, needs to get back accustomed to the pen where he’ll be in important part of the Cubs’ push in the playoffs, throwing from the left side.
As a result, at least for the series against the Cards, the Cubs will go back to a five man rotation—though Joe Maddon hinted at a bullpen game once Chicago gets to Pittsburgh.
Given all of that, the Cubs are lined up to send Cy Young hopeful Kyle Hendricks to the mound on Saturday against the Cardinal’s rookie phenom: Alex Reyes.
Hendricks actually looked human in his last start, but he still managed to throw six innings, allowing only two runs and striking out nine against the Brewers for his ninth straight quality start. Prior to that start, he had three straight outings of one run or fewer.
Overall, Hendricks has lowered his ERA to 2.06 and is 1508 on the season. He lost his last start, but he’s still 4-1 in his last five outings. Those five starts includes a one-run, eight inning outing against the Cardinals where he allowed just a single hit—a homer to the first batter of the ninth innings to end his no-hit bid.
Interestingly, Hendricks hasn’t dominated the opposition. Instead, he’s been able to execute his pitches to near perfect, making it hard for the opposition to square up, giving them a really easy 0-for-4 day at the plate.
Comparatively, Reyes has the filthier stuff. He can blow hitters away and has 40 strikeouts in his young 35-innings career.
Originally promoted to help out the pen, Reyes has made a couple very impressive starts. His last start was his best. He held the Giants scoreless over seven innings to lower his ERA to 1.03.
As for his experience against Chicago, he’s faced them twice—both times out of the pen—combining to throw 7.1 innings of scoreless baseball. He’s allowed two hits against them, but has walked them seven time. Opposite of Hendricks, Reyes relies on pure stuff while his command is still shaky as times as he adjusts to the big league level.
LIVE BETTING
The Cardinals have a very non-Cardinals roster this season. Typically we think of the Cardinal way as being a team built on strong pitching, solid defense and the ability to drive home runners in scoring position. The Cardinal teams of old haven’t really had too much power, but they sure do have pop this year. That plays into St. Louis’s better play on the road as Busch Stadium isn’t overly conducive to the homer.
Between Randal Grichuk, Stephen Piscotty, Brandon Moss and Jedd Gyorko, the team has four players with more than 20 home runs and Matt Carpenter is one off at 19.
This team, however, has a number of starters hitting below .250, including most of the big thumpers.
Given their reliance on the big fly, they’re a team that can be pitched to and a guy like Hendricks is just the one to take advantage of that as he did last time he faced them. Here in September, the Cards are scoring just 3.7 runs per game.
Of course the Cubs have scored just one more run this month in the same number of games. Chicago, however, has a more versatile lineup and some of that depressed scoring came after they clinched the division.
Maddon now has the luxury to rest a few guys, but even when he does that he has a very strong lineup given the deep bench. Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant are also both likely to keep playing despite the two want to be out there and are fighting for MVP honors. It’s always nice when you can boast a lineup that features two of the leading MVP candidates.
QUICK PICK
The Cubs are a much deeper team with a better, more diverse skill set, particularly at the plate. Moreover, Hendricks shut down the Cardinals the last time he faced them.
While Reyes has shown strong success against the Cubs in a couple bullpen appearances, he’s yet to have to go through the complete lineup a few times in the same game. That’s a challenge with a lineup as deep and talented as Chicago’s.
Look for this to be a low scoring game given the strength of the starters and the newly reinforced bullpens that includes Montgomery for the Cubs and a healthy Trevor Rosenthal and Michael Wacha for the Cards.
In the end, the walks will come back to bite Reyes as the Cubs manufacture a couple runs as a result, allowing Hendricks to go seven strong, before handing the ball over to Hector Rondon and Aroldis Chapman to close it out.
MLB Odds: Cubs 3, Cardinals 1
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