The St. Louis Cardinals face off against the New York Mets tonight in St. Louis. The Cardinals lost a heartbreaker last night after taking a 2-0 lead into the 9th inning. They had a groundball hit to Nolan Arenado to end the game, and he threw it wide for the error. Arenado is one of the best, if not the best defensive infielder in the league. On the next play, there was a groundball to first base that the pitcher didn’t cover first base on. That led to the tying run scoring from second base. The Mets proceeded to put up a couple more runs to seal the deal in the 9th inning. However, I think today’s game should play out similarly to last nights, without the late fireworks. I think it will be low scoring the whole way, with one big hit deciding the game.
However, despite last night’s close game, neither bullpen was used to the point of being unavailable today. The Cardinals bullpen was ranked 2nd in the league before the collapse last night, so I think that ranking is a little deceptive. The Cardinals now 8th ranked bullpen in the league will be matched up with the Mets 15th ranked bullpen. Jordan Hicks won’t pitch deep into the game again, as he is not completely built up to be a starter yet. So it will be mostly a bullpen game for the Cardinals, and they have every bullpen arm available. The Mets will start Chris Bassitt who was hit hard in his last outing, but he has two quality starts other than that. He was also hit hard on the road last season. The Cardinals should have won after facing Max Scherzer for 7 innings, I think they will have a lot more success against Bassitt tonight. I think the Cardinals find a way to take this one off the Mets bullpen tonight, I like the value in the Cardinals at home at even money.
