Cardinals vs. Phillies series betting preview
One of many clichés in Major League Baseball is that you aren’t supposed to even look at the standings until Memorial Day in the United States, which was Monday. That’s the first “official” checkpoint of each season.
Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com
Good news for Philadelphia Phillies fans: Your team has a good chance of playing postseason baseball for the first time since 2011, which was the end of that excellent club’s five-year playoff run that included one World Series title. That’s because the Phillies lead the NL East and around 60 percent of teams that lead their division on Memorial Day have made the postseason since MLB added the first wild-card spot in each league in 1995. Of course, there are now two wild-card spots.
Being in the same tough NL Central Division with the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers, a wild-card spot might be the only path to the playoffs for the St. Louis Cardinals. They open a three-game series in Philadelphia on Tuesday night and then these clubs are done playing this regular season. The Phillies opened as -130 betting favorites for Tuesday’s game.
The Phillies and Cardinals have one major thing in common: Both added an MVP-caliber bat in the offseason. Philadelphia won the bidding for Washington Nationals free agent Bryce Harper, while St. Louis traded for the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Paul Goldschmidt. The latter has gotten off to a better start thus far.
From May 6-8, the Phillies won two of three in St. Louis and every game was decided by at least five runs. The Cardinals totaled just one run in their two losses, outscored 16-1 in those. Their lone win was 6-0 in the opener behind Miles Mikolas, who isn’t scheduled to pitch in this series.
Phils second baseman Cesar Hernandez, one of the NL’s most underrated players, hit Cardinals pitching hard, going 5-for-10 with a home run, double and four RBI. Rhys Hoskins was 4-for-12 with a home run. Harper was 2-for-10 and went yard once. St. Louis hit just .161 in the series. Yadier Molina had a solid series, going 4-for-9 with a home run. Goldschmidt was 1-for-11, Marcell Ozuna 0-for-11 and Matt Carpenter 1-for-10.
Philadelphia was 2-1 at home against St. Louis last year and hasn’t been swept at home by the Cardinals since 2006. The Phils haven’t done the sweeping since 2003.
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