The Philadelphia Phillies travel to St. Louis to take on the Cardinals in their second series against each other in the past couple weeks. The Phillies won two of the three games between these teams in Philadelphia with their series win coming on Sunday Night Baseball. However, these two teams are completely different at home versus on the road. The Phillies are 20-18 on the road while the Cardinals are 21-24 on the road. However, the Cardinals head back home tonight where they are 24-16 on the season.
Adam Wainwright will start for the Cardinals, and he has also been much better at home. He is 3-2 with a 2.25 ERA at home this season while he is 3-4 with a 4.10 ERA on the road this season. He has been struggling overall, but his struggles were all on the road and all against good teams. He also faced the Phillies in his last start and allowed 4 ER in 5.2 IP. Usually, I would think it is a disadvantage for a pitcher to see the same team in a week, but Adam Wainwright is a veteran. I actually think he will be able to use his last start to come up with a better game plan this time around the lineup.
Zack Wheeler is starting for the Phillies, and he has been dominant this season. He is 4-1 with a 1.90 ERA in his past 7 starts, however he is also just 2-2 with a 4.45 ERA on the road this season. He pitched seven scoreless innings against the Cardinals in his last start. However, he is kind of in the opposite boat of Wainwright. He had success in his first start, so what adjustments does he make? He only knows what worked against them, not what didn’t work. I think the Cardinals hitters actually have the advantage here because of that. They can now gameplan for him this time around after seeing the kind of stuff he has, while Wheeler doesn’t have anything to make adjustments off. The home/road splits are obviously big for both these starters in terms of performance as well, like I mentioned before.
Both bullpens have been very good lately, so I think that is mostly a wash. But I think the Cardinals should definitely be favored tonight because of the starting pitchers. We know how much starting pitchers make a difference in lines, so knowing that these starters could perform a lot different than the book expects gives us a ton of value here. Take the Cardinals at plus money.
Cardinals ML +108 vs. Phillies