Thursday October 20th 1am
ESPN
America
Starting
Pitchers
Wilson (16-9, 3.28
ERA)
St. Louis: Carpenter
(13-9, 3.47 ERA)
Here
we go! A great part of the year – the World Series, the NFL well underway ...
hell, there’s even cricket from India (although I’m a staunch Test cricket man).
Starting
pitching has been ropey in the post-season (the Cardinals’ rotation has a post-season earned run average of 5.43, the Rangers’ 5.62) and Wilson is typical
of the struggles of usually tough pitchers:
Texas
is 2-6 in its last eight road games with C.J. Wilson on the hill; he’s winless in
his last six (0-4 in that stretch) and has posted 1.85/8.04 WHIP/ERA L3.
These
teams are hitting the ball a ton and both lineups are deep, so you’d better be
on your game, because as we’ve seen, it can get ugly, quickly.
Carpenter
has been rather stronger, going 1.18/3.71 L3, but I’m very nervous of the
reports that he has a sore elbow. These guys play through these sorts of things
all season, but a pitcher’s mechanics are so finely tuned, that even the
slightest variation can badly affect performance.
The
Rangers have been murdering the fastball, but this year Carp has thrown his
fastball less often, and if he can get his curveball and slider going tonight,
he can cool off some of the Texas’ bats.
Speaking
of cool; it looks like it’ll be a cold and windy night. Temperatures are
expected to be in the low 30s with winds gusting to 29 mph, blowing out to
right field. That should help the pitchers keep it in the park.
I
recommended the 8/1 on offer on the Rangers as we went into the post-season, as
it looked like great value, and I’m not going to back off them now for the
series (although I’ve layed a little back) but I think Carpenter gets the Cards
home tonight. I like the Unders too with two pitchers who undoubtedly have the
stuff.
Pick: Cardinals @ 1.84;
-119; 21/25
Pick: Under 7.5 @ 2.00;
100; Evens
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