Cardinals Look To Maintain NL Central Lead Against Astros

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Cardinals Look To Maintain NL Central Lead Against Astros

The St. Louis Cardinals lead the NL Central as of midweek, but they’re not working very hard at it. They’ve managed to stay atop what is the most mediocre division in baseball by playing slightly above that level. As of Tuesday, only 4 games separated the first place Cardinals from the last place Astros with even the 5th place Chicago Cubs just 2.5 games back despite a record of 10-13. This Thursday, the first place Cards will take on the last place Astros at Minute Maid Field in Houston as St. Louis tries to stay just ahead of the pack in their division.

In terms of talent on hand, the Cards should be performing at a high level this season. Tony LaRussa is back for his 16th season as manager and, if anything, has an improved every day roster to work with. The Cards upgraded the middle of the batting order with the free agent acquisition of Lance Burkman and the emergence of rookies Jon Jay and Allen Craig late last season will pay dividends this year in the form of added depth. The pitching rotation should be decent assuming that Chris Carpenter can avoid injury and veteran Jake Westbrook can improve upon his numbers from last season. Westbrook has struggled somewhat, but LaRussa has to be happy with the Cards’ team ERA of 3.19 which currently ranks #6 in the Majors. They’ve also got the best team batting average in the Major Leagues which begs the question “why is a team that pitches well and hits the ball well just barely over .500?”

Houston is also hitting the ball well—their .266 team batting average ranks #6 in the big leagues—but their pitching has been awful. The Astros are currently dead last in team batting average with a 5.08 ERA and are the only team in the Majors with a team ERA over 5. Their bullpen hasn’t been quite as bad, but far from dominating. From a purely statistical standpoint, this game looks like a mismatch and that extends to the starting pitching in Thursday’s game. St. Louis will go with Kyle McClellan who has looked very sharp this year with a 2.16 ERA and 15 strikeouts in three starts. Houston will start Nelson Figueroa who is 0-3 with a bloated 8.55 ERA.

Worth noting that St. Louis lost a ton of money against Houston in 2010, dropping -13.25 units. Since 2008, the Astros are 8-4 +4.2 units against the Cards on their home field with 8 of these 12 games going UNDER the total. With both teams hitting the ball well and the dismal state of Houston’s pitching staff we don’t trust them to make the UNDER work. We still don’t have much confidence in this Cardinals team but facing a pitcher in horrible form it’s hard to make a case against them here.