St. Louis Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction: Should You Expect Runs in St. Louis?

St. Louis Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates Prediction: Should You Expect Runs in St. Louis?

On Thursday, the St. Louis Cardinals clobbered the Pittsburgh Pirates, 9-0, in the first game of the season. Yesterday, the Cardinals and Pirates got the day off, but both teams will be back in action today. The Cardinals added Albert Pujols back onto the roster and he's not currently the designated hitter for his former ball club. It's just awesome to see stuff like this.

Pujols wasn't the big bat in the lineup for the Cardinals in the first game. However, he and the rest of the Cardinals lineup should have success in today's game. Here are our picks, predictions, and odds for the second game of the series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals.

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Cardinals vs. Pirates Start Time, Where to Watch, and Odds

• Date: April 9, 2022
• Game Time: 2:15 pm ET
• Where to Watch: BSMW/ATTP

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Cardinals vs. Pirates Injury Report

Pirates

Questionable: 3B Ke'Bryan Hayes (Forearm), OF Anthony Alford (Wrist)

Cardinals

None of Importance

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Cardinals vs. Pirates Line Movement

Cardinals vs. Pirates Prediction

The Pittsburgh Pirates didn't improve last season. While other struggling teams went out and signed a bunch of players, Pittsburgh remained quiet and kept what they had.

Therefore, Pittsburgh will continue to send out poor pitching and bad hitting. It's what they do.

Mitch Keller will take the mound for the Pirates after he had a 5.24 xFIP with 19.6% strikeouts and 10.4% walks last season. Keller only induced 40.6% ground balls and allowed 26.6% line drive contact along with 46% hard contact last season.

Against Keller, lefties had a .385 wOBa with an ISO of .132 but righties had a .368 wOBA with an ISO of .176. Keller allowed more power from the right side, despite being a right-handed pitcher.

This bodes well for the Cardinals lineup, knowing the Cardinals are built on a right-handed heavy lineup.

St. Louis will have seven right-handed batters in the lineup along with two switch-hitters. As a projected lineup, the Cardinals only hit 39.9% ground balls against righties last season and over 20% line drives. Strikeouts were also low at 20.5% against righties last season.

On the other hand, the Cardinals will pitch Miles Mikolas who should be able to get a full season in on the mound. Mikolas had a 4.43 xFIP last season but only walked 6.8% of batters after facing a little over 150 batters last year.

Mikolas dominated righties, holding righties to a .260 wOBA and ISO of .164. Lefties walked more and struck out less but only had an ISO of .125. Mikolas was dominant at times and didn't allow much power. In the Pittsburgh lineup, there's really not much to like outside of Bryant Reynolds and maybe Daniel Vogelbach.

St. Louis should be just fine against Pittsburgh today.

St. Louis Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates Pick

• Cardinals -1.5 (+120) (Bet $100 to Win $120)

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