Giants vs Cardinals Thursday Odds | Rickwood Field Game Prediction
Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images. Pictured: Jorge Soler.
Giants vs Cardinals Thursday Odds | Rickwood Field Game Prediction
| San Francisco Giants Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
-115 | 9 -110o / -110u | +1.5 -220 |
| St. Louis Cardinals Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
-105 | 9 -110o / -110u | -1.5 +180 |
On Thursday night, the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals will face off in a marquee event for Major League Baseball. This game will take place at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Ala., the former home of the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues.
These two squads are both in the Wild Card hunt in the National League. Entering Thursday, the Cardinals (36-37) sit 7 1/2 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the NL Central lead and (barely) hold possession of one of the three Wild Card spots.
San Francisco (36-39) is 9 1/2 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West and one game out of that last wild card spot. Almost every team in the NL is still alive in the playoff race, so every game will be important for these teams going forward.
Giants vs Cardinals odds for Thursday have the Giants as -115 moneyline favorites with an over/under of 9 (-110o /-110u). The odds movement here is notable as the Cardinals opened as -130 moneyline favorites. You can find my Rickwood Field Game prediction on the F5 moneyline below.
Keaton Winn will take the mound for San Francisco on Thursday. In his first full season in the Giants’ rotation, things haven't started off so well. Winn has a 6.66 ERA but a 5.31 xERA and 4.69 FIP to this point.
The 26-year-old righty has a plus splitter as his primary pitch, which he throws 40.8% of time. His issue this season has been his sinker, as batters are hitting .410 with a .692 SLG against it.
Winn ranks 17th among 122 starting pitchers with 50+ innings pitched this season in Stuff+. However, he has a Location+ of just 98, which ranks 99th amongst this subset of players.
Because of his poor location — especially with his sinker — Winn’s batted ball metrics are terrible. He has a first-percentile average exit velocity, second-percentile hard-hit rate allowed and 28th-percentile barrel rate allowed.
San Francisco ranks 13th in wRC+ and 15th in wOBA this year. It's 10th in OBP, 17th in SLG and 21st in ISO. The Giants walk at the eighth-highest rate in the league and strikeout just 21.3% of the time (11th-best).
The Giants are 12th in hard-hit rate, 19th in barrel rate and 17th in average exit velocity. They rank 20th in xwOBACON as well.
Despite having decent outcomes by wRC+ and wOBA this season, these are driven largely by their plate discipline rather than their ability to make quality contact consistently.
Andre Pallante is St. Louis’ starter on Thursday. He's done a fine job this season working in both the rotation and from the bullpen. Pallante has a 4.61 ERA and 4.15 xERA over 27.1 innings pitched this season.
Since making his first of four starts this season on May 29, Pallante has thrown just one quality start. He's also had one terrible outing (6 ER) before allowing zero and one runs in his last two starts — but with neither of those outings lasting longer than five innings.
Pallante is a heavy ground-ball pitcher, ranking in the 96th percentile in ground-ball rate. He also has a 93rd percentile barrel rate allowed this year but a 20th percentile hard-hit rate.
His 15th percentile whiff rate and 17th percentile strikeout rate leave a lot to be desired as Pallante has just 21 strikeouts on the year, averaging 6.91 K/9.
He's also had issues with walks, issuing a free pass to 9.8% of his batters faced this year, which ranks in the 26th percentile.
This season, the Cardinals rank 19th in wRC+ and 22nd in wOBA. They've improved after a slow start to the season, as they rank 14th and 15th in these two categories, respectively, over the last 30 days.
St. Louis ranks 26th in hard-hit rate, 28th in barrel rate and 25th in average exit velocity. It does rank 16th in xwOBACON, so despite many of these batted ball metrics suggesting that it's bad, it may be closer to an average offense than one of the worst in baseball.
Giants vs. Cardinals
Betting Pick & Prediction
Winn has been hit hard this season but likely isn’t as bad as his ERA shows. His Stuff+ numbers are good and despite his lack of whiffs, Winn generates a lot of ground balls and can keep his ERA down if he avoids allowing as much quality contact as he has to this point.
Fortunately for him, this St. Louis offense isn’t one that strikes fear into most. While the Cardinals have been better as of late, this is still a league-average offense — at best — until the big names in the middle of the order start to produce consistently.
Action Network’s Sean Zerillo noted in his Opening Pitch column that the dimensions for Rickwood Field resemble other parks with an above-average park factor. But high winds blowing in from center field tonight may neutralize this and make it closer to an average park for hitting.
With two similar offenses, I give San Francisco the slight edge on starting pitching in this matchup. Both of these teams have strong bullpens, and I don’t know how deep Palante may go in this one.
The under may have been a good play earlier, but I wouldn't chase it anymore at the current price.
Instead, I’ll be taking the Giants on the F5 moneyline at -105 as I believe Winn may be a bit undervalued here.
Pick: Giants F5 ML (-105, Play to -110)
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