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September 21th 2010 : MLB picks and analyses
St. Louis Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
MLB Prediction: Pirates (RL)
The Cardinals come into Pittsburgh after losing their makeup game in Florida against the Marlins last night. Their chances of winning the N.L. Central are pretty much gone as well. The last time the Cardinals came to Pittsburgh, they lost two of three games. Jake Westbrook makes the start for St. Louis. He’s 2-3 with a 3.26 in nine starts for the Cardinals. He took one of those losses in Pittsburgh back in August after giving up four runs and six hits in six innings of work. St. Louis has actually lost four of Westbrook’s last five road starts. Pittsburgh enters tonight’s game having won three straight games from Arizona after getting good hitting and timely pitching.
Paul Maholm has not been good this year. He’s 7-15 with a 5.36 ERA this season. He’s 5-9 with a 5.91 ERA at home as well. The reason to like Maholm in this game is his history against the Cardinals. He picked up a win back in August against the Cardinals after giving up two runs and seven hits in 6.2 innings of work. As a team, the Cardinals are hitting just .259 against Maholm with Felipe Lopez (7-33), Pedro Feliz (5-21), Yadier Molina (4-21), Brendan Ryan (3-21), Matt Holliday (2-16), Aaron Miles (1-7), Nick Stavinoha (1-5), Skip Schumaker (0-3), Colby Rasmus (0-3), and Jon Jay (0-3) all doing the worst. You’ve got to wonder about the Cardinals psyche right now since they’ve traveled a lot recently; they’ve lost 13 of their last 17 road games. The Pirates have the bullpen edge in this one as well so we’ll recommend taking them on the run line in this game tonight.
San Francisco Giants vs. Chicago Cubs
Pick: San Francisco Giants -115 odds
The Giants are coming off a pretty average homestand where they went just 3-3 including a series loss against the Brewers over the weekend. Still, they maintained first place in the National League West by a half-game over San Diego and a game and a half over Colorado so every game is big at this point. San Francisco is three games over .500 on the road with six games remaining and the series following this is at San Diego which makes this matchup with the Cubs even more important.
Chicago is red hot right now as it has won eight of its last nine games which is its best stretch of the season. There are two problems however. First, all of those games came on the road where the Cubs have a better record than at home. Second, they had a day off yesterday so all of the momentum built up during that roadtrip has been stalled. Going back to the end of July, Chicago is just 7-16 in its last 23 games at Wrigley Field showing the home field edge is no more.
San Francisco goes with Matt Cain and he has been a tough luck pitcher at times this season. He has a 3.08 ERA and 1.10 WHIP through 30 starts but has just a 12-10 record to show for it. Run support has been the issue but it has gotten much better as San Francisco has averaged 5.7 rpg over his last five starts, all resulting in wins. Going back further, Cain has made 12 starts since the break and the Giants have won 10 of them with Cain going 6-2. He is 5-2 with a 2.61 ERA in nine career starts against the Cubs.
Carlos Zambrano has been just as good as his season has completely turned around since he was suspended. Zambrano has won five consecutive starts and is 6-0 with a 1.59 ERA since rejoining the rotation August 9th. That is a tough streak to go against but the majority of those games have come against non-playoff teams. The Cubs have lost two games since his return and they were against San Diego and San Francisco, the only two teams of the bunch still in the playoff hunt.
San Francisco is 10-1 in the second half of the season in road games against National League teams allowing 4.8 or more rpg and 10-1 in its last 11 road games against teams with a losing home record.. Meanwhile the Cubs are 11-22 at home against National League starters with a 3.50 ERA or better and they are 9-17 in Zambrano’s last 26 home starts against teams with a winning percentage between .540 and .620. 3* San Francisco Giants
New York Mets vs. Florida Marlins
Pick: Florida Marlins -113 odds
At 7:10 pm, our complimentary selection is on the Florida Marlins over the New York Mets. Florida righthander Adalberto Mendez has a 1-1 record and 1.74 ERA after his first two starts in the Major Leagues, pretty impressive numbers for a 28-year-old rookie who went undrafted as an amateur and was first signed by the Cubs back in 2001. Add to this the fact that in his first two MLB starts, Mendez faced the defending National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies, and that takes it up another notch or two. He will learn pretty quickly that facing teams other than the Phils is a good thing, and he may very well find that out tonight as he goes from throwing to one of the most potent lineups in baseball to one of the most anemic. It also won’t hurt his chances that his own lineup will be facing righthander Mike Pelfrey who, despite having a pretty good season at 15-9 with a 3.84 ERA, has struggled quite a bit in his last two road starts - games which the Mets lost by a combined score of 17-4 - and who also has not fared well in his career against the Marlins, going just 1-6 with an ugly 5.79 ERA in 11 lifetime starts against them. The Mets are just 2-8 in Pelfrey’s last 10 starts vs. the Fish. Take Florida. As always, good luck…
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Originally Posted by handicapper03
