St. Louis at Philadelphia

MLB

St. Louis Cardinals at Philadelphia Phillies

Saturday 1^st October, 10.07pm (Note: Coverage scheduled to start at 10.30pm)

ESPN America

Starting Pitchers

St. Louis: Lohse (17-13, 3.39 ERA)

Philadelphia: Halladay (19-6, 2.35 ERA)

A puzzler.

The Phillies are genuinely unfazed by the whole ‘dream team’ tag, and it’s that kind of weakness you have to look for to justify opposing them, because physically as a baseball team, they’re a formidable proposition.

The Philadelphia starting pitching is a given – it’s the best in the game, no contest – and their offense is enough to get it done behind the arms. The metrics on offense aren’t great – they rank around the 13^th, 15^th mark by the numbers - but it hardly warrants a confident bet against them.

St. Louis must be bouncing after edging past the Braves into the post-season, and they have the kind of power that can unsettle any pitcher, the problem is Halladay has a 1.03/2.10 WHIP/ERA career line against them.

Lohse has decent enough career numbers against the Phillies (1.26/3.43) but again, it doesn’t have the trigger finger itching.

I’ll rely on Lohse, the Phillies’ offense and Halladay’s numbers to keep this under, but to be honest; this is not a game to get involved.

Pick: Under 7 @ 1.91; -110; 10/11