Philadelphia Phillies at St. Louis Cardinals Betting Preview/Prop Picks
08 July 2022
The Philadelphia Phillies are looking to climb their way up in the NL East. After a 5-3 win over the Washington Nationals, the Phillies are now 44-39. Tonight, they’ll begin a four-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Cardinals are a tough team, and the Phillies will need to be at the top of their game. The good news is Philadelphia already notched a few wins over them.
The St. Louis Cardinals have lost four of their last five but ended the losing streak with a win. After beating the Atlanta Braves 3-2 in the 11th inning, the Cardinals are looking for another win.
With a 45-40 record this season, the Cardinals rank second in the NL Central. If they want to catch up to Milwaukee, they’ll need a few key wins. They can start tonight against Philadelphia.
Philadelphia Phillies: Wheeler heads to the mound tonight
The good news for Philadelphia is that they’ll have a strong pitcher on the mound tonight. With Zach Wheeler making the start, the Phillies will have a 7-4 pitcher on the mound. Wheeler has an ERA of 2.66, throwing 99 strikeouts in 88 innings.
With Wheeler, the Phillies definitely have the edge in terms of pitching. The question is, can they get runs across the plate today?
As a team, the Phillies rank third in the league with 403 runs. Unfortunately, without Bryce Harper, their batting has suffered. As a team, the Phillies have a batting average of .248, ranking 10th overall.
If Wheeler can slow down the Cardinals, the Phillies batters should be able to win it. Still, taking down the Cardinals won’t be an easy task, even with Wheeler out there.
St. Louis Cardinals: Can the Cardinals start a winning streak?
After losing four games in a row, the Cardinals finally earned a win. Beating the Braves was great, but now they’ll need to extend their winning streak.
It starts with this game against Philadelphia and Zach Wheeler. The Cardinals have a strong batting group, scoring 390 runs and ranking sixth in MLB. They also have an impressive .319 on-base percentage this year.
On the mound for the Cardinals today is Adam Wainwright, a stable pitcher. Wainwright has an ERA of 3.26 over the course of 96.2 innings pitched. Wainwright should do fine against the Phillies to begin the game, but what about as the game progresses?
This is where we see Wainwright struggling to put away the Phillies. With that being said, who will win the game?
Philadelphia Phillies at St. Louis Cardinals Betting Pick
When looking at what each of these teams bring to the game, pitching stands out. As we said, the Phillies definitely have the edge here with Wheeler on the mound.
Philadelphia also has a road record of 20-18, giving us even more confidence. We’ll start our picks by taking Philadelphia on the road at -113.
Along with this pick, we’ll take the under, taking both pitchers into consideration. We don’t think the Phillies will win this game until the later innings when Wainwright is fatigued. It will be a close score, but the Phillies will edge it out.
DunkelIndex Free Pick: Philadelphia Phillies -113, UNDER
Prop Picks
St. Louis (-115) UNDER 3.5 Runs
Philadelphia is allowing 4.21 runs per 9 innings on defense, which ranks No. 12 in the league, while limiting teams to 0.95 HRs per 9 innings, which ranks No. 7. Scores have gone UNDER in six of the Phillies’ last eight games versus St. Louis.
With Dunkel predicting a Philadelphia victory by the score of 4-2, take the Cardinals (-115) to finish UNDER their Vegas team total of 3.5 runs against the Phillies.
Zack Wheeler (-155) OVER 5.5 Strikeouts
Wheeler has record 99 strikeouts in 88.0 innings pitched for an average of 10.1 Ks per 9 innings, which ranks No. 2 on the Phillies. The right hander has 38 Ks in 32.1 innings pitched on the road.
With Dunkel predicting a Phillies road victory while holding the Cardinals UNDER their Vegas team run total, take Wheeler (-155) to finish OVER 5.5 strikeouts against St. Louis.
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