Friday MLB Best Bet: Cardinals vs. Braves

Written by Jake Thompson
Friday, 29 April 2011 15:36

The Braves and Cardinals will play in our Friday MLB best bet game.

Our Friday MLB best bet is a good one and you can find your riches in the 7:35 PM ET game between the St. Louis Cardinals (14-11) and the Atlanta Braves (13-13).  Online sportsbooks have made the Braves the small home favorite, but the Cardinals’ 8-5 road record easily bests the 4-5 home mark that Atlanta has put together this season.  The Cardinals have won 6 of the last 8 head-to-head meetings with the Braves, and we’ll have two of the best pitchers in baseball taking the mound for tonight’s clash.

Chris Carpenter (0-2, 1.10 WHIP, 3.90 ERA) gets the nod for St. Louis and the veteran right-hander has allowed just 2 runs and 7 hits over his last 2 starts.  The bad news for Carpenter is that he has somehow found a way to lose both of those starts, and he also gave up 6 earned runs over 5 innings in his last start in Atlanta.  Carpenter has actually been hit hard by the Braves in 2 of his last 3 starts against them but has also had some great starts including a 6-inning, 2-runs allowed performance just last season.

The Braves will turn to right-hander Tim Hudson (3-2, 1.08 WHIP, 3.57 ERA) to counter Carpenter.  Hudson hasn’t always been dominant this season but he knows how to give his team a chance to win and is almost always putting in good performances where he allows a couple runs but keeps the score tight.  Hudson gave up 9 earned runs in 2 starts against St. Louis last season and has historically either dominated them or gotten hit hard.  There simply hasn’t been much middle ground against this team.

St. Louis is hitting .295 on the year while the Braves are only batting .225.  When you look at how each has hit lefties (Cardinals at .302, Braves at .233), it still appears as if St. Louis is much more likely to score runs in this clash.  Similar to the above trends, the Cardinals are batting .297 over their last 10 games while the Braves are at just .225.  Just to hammer home how these two offenses have performed this year, Atlanta hits .225 at home while the Cardinals have swatted an outstanding .323 average in their road games.

I just don’t see how Tim Hudson is going to do anything other than allow 3-5 runs over 5 innings in this game with how well the Cardinals are hitting this year.  Outfielder Lance Berkman has been huge for St. Louis this year and Hudson has had a bad history against the Cardinals when it was just Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday taking cuts at him.  Carpenter has had bad luck this year as far as getting wins go and I expect that trend to reverse itself and even out a bit tonight as he finally gets in the win column.

Cardinals 5

Braves 3