Chicago Cubs @ St. Louis Cardinals

Cubs -120

Total: 8.5

The Cubs have taken the first two games of this series thanks to their offense scoring 19 runs combined. They’ve hit five homers in the first two games of the series and the Cards pitchers really haven’t had an answer. Jack Flaherty will try to stop them in their tracks as he himself is coming off a very nice six inning, one run outing against the Padres. The Cards have fallen 4.5 games behind the Cubs and with a Brewers loss and Cubs win, the Cubs could have control of first place by the time we wake up to go to work tomorrow.

Game Play Predictions

 

Cubs

  • As I mentioned, they’ve hit five homers in two games this series. Opposing pitching Jack Flaherty has allowed a homer in five consecutive outings.

  • Javier Báez is 11-for-28 (.393) with three home runs, one double and one triple in seven games against the Cardinals this year.

  • Cubs rank 4th in OPS and wOBA and 7th in wRC+ against right-handed pitching this season.

  • Ben Zobrist is 5-for-25 over his last 10 games but is leading off and hitting .292 from the left-side of the plate.

  • José Quintana has allowed two earned runs or less in four of his last five outings.

  • Quintana has struck out at least five in eight of his last 10 games. St. Louis ranks 14th in the league with a 22.3-percent K-rate.

  • Albert Almora Jr. is hitting .393 over his last 10 games and in seven games against the Cardinals his average sits at .375.

  • In the first game of this series, Kris Bryant hit his first home run since May 14th.

 

Cardinals

  • Both Dexter Fowler and Tommy Pham have hit home runs off of José Quintana . Fowler is 5-for-14, Pham is 2-for-9.

  • Jack Flaherty has allowed three earned runs or less in seven of his eight starts this year, and four or less in all eight.

  • Flaherty has not gone deep into games, however, only making it out of the sixth inning once and only pitching into the sixth inning four of the eight.

  • Marcell Ozuna has homered in three straight games and five times over his last seven contests.

  • Jedd Gyorko is the Cardinals best hitter against left-handed pitching posting a .387 AVG and .504 wOBA with three homers in just 38 at-bats.

  • Since coming off of the disabled list, Yadier Molina is just 7-for-32 (.219) with no home runs and only one extra-base hit total.

  • Tommy Pham is riding a 10-game hitting streak and has hits in 12 of his last 13 contests.

  • Matt Carpenter , who’s leading off Sunday night, is hitting .171 against left-handed pitching this season.