One of baseball's best rivalries will play out in prime time tonight as the Chicago Cubs host the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday Night Baseball.
The pregame narrative: Both teams have had a bullpen blowup in this series, but I'm focused on the starting pitchers for my best bet. In the prop market, I've got plays involving Tommy Pham, Nico Hoerner and Seiya Suzuki.
Check out my Cardinals vs. Cubs picks for Sunday Night Baseball on Aug. 4.
Cardinals vs. Cubs picks
Go to full Cardinals/Cubs betting markets.
Best Bet: Cubs -0.5 - first five innings (-113)
The Cardinals haven't faced Justin Steele yet this season. But they can't hide any longer.
Steele won all four of his starts against St. Louis last season. The left-hander posted a 2.59 ERA in those outings and they were all "quality" starts (i.e., six-plus innings and three or fewer earned runs).
Quality starts are a bit of an archaic stat, but they mean something to me on F5 markets. They indicate that a pitcher is consistently keeping his team in contention.
I don't think Steele will need to put up a bunch of zeroes for the Cubs to cash this bet, though he might be able to do that. St. Louis has a dreadful .643 OPS against lefties this year (29th in MLB).
As long as he keeps the Cardinals relatively in check, I expect Chicago's offence to do its part.
St. Louis starter Miles Mikolas has been dreadful recently (5.85 ERA in his past seven starts) and even worse in recent matchups against the Cubs.
Dating back to last July, Mikolas has allowed 16 runs on 27 hits in five outings against Chicago (6.17 ERA).
Key stat: The Cubs went 4-0 on the F5 moneyline in Steele's four starts against the Cardinals last season.
Quick picks
Parlay: Pham, Hoerner 1+ hits each (-106): I rarely target parlay plays at minus odds, but I'll make an exception for two of the hottest hitters in this matchup.
Pham looks right at home with St. Louis, the team that drafted him in 2006 and re-acquired him last week at the deadline. He's batting 8-for-17 (.471) in his return to the Redbirds. Also, Pham is batting .288 against LHPs this season.
As for Hoerner, he's been a menace against the Cardinals in his series and is riding a seven-game hit streak into Sunday night.
The middle infielder is 5-for-12 with three runs in this series. He's also 12-for-30 (.400) against Mikolas, cashing this bet in four of his past five matchups against the St. Louis righty.
Suzuki over 0.5 RBI (+135): Given that I like the Cubs' opportunity to put up runs tonight, Suzuki seems like as strong a pick as anyone to drive somebody in.
The Japanese outfielder is on a 10-game heater, slashing .359/.432/.769 since July 24. He has seven multi-hit games in that span.
Suzuki will likely bat third ahead of Hoerner and Ian Happ. Together, Hoerner and Happ are 25-for-70 (.357) against Mikolas.
There should be traffic on the basepaths for Suzuki, and I'm counting on him to come through.
Picks made at 11:45 a.m. ET 08/04/2024.
