San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals Prediction: Should We Expect Scoring to Be Limited?
San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals Prediction: Should We Expect Scoring to Be Limited?
The St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants are always in the conversation for the best National League team every year. If your team isn’t the Dodgers, you’re likely jealous of these two teams.
With that said, the Cardinals and Giants are both above .500 but one team has to lose tonight. I’m not sure I can find the winning team, but I have an angle I like. Here are our picks, predictions, and odds for Saturday's game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals.
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Giants vs. Cardinals Start Time, Where to Watch, and Odds
- Date: May 7, 2022
- Game Time: 7:15 pm ET
- Where to Watch: FS1
Click Here for Giants vs Cardinals Odds
Giants vs. Cardinals Injury Report
Cardinals
Questionable: SS Edmundo Sosa (Illness)
Giants
Out: 1B Brandon Belt (Illness), OF Steven Duggar (Oblique), 2B Tomma La Stella (Achilles), 3B Evan Longoria (Finger)
Giants vs. Cardinals Total Runs Movement
San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals Prediction
The Cardinals will pitch newly acquired left-hander Steven Matz. Matz signed a multi-year deal with the Cardinals and has been much better than people are giving him credit for.
Matz is 3-1 with a 4.56 ERA but has a 3.03 xFIP, and is striking out 26% of batters along with just 4.8% of walks. He’s just been a bit unlucky, allowing a .400 BABIP. That means 40% of balls in play that are hit against Matz are becoming hits. That number is going to decrease eventually. It’ll likely happen against the Giants.
The Giants’ protected lineup has a .080 ISO and wOBA of .245 against lefties. The projected lineup for the Giants is also hitting 46% of ground balls and 18% of line drives. That’s just not going to phase Matz here.
On the other hand, the Giants will pitch Logan Webb, who has a 3.26 ERA with a 3-1 record also. Webb is only earning 15.9% strikeouts but he’s keeping the walks down and getting over 62% of ground balls along with an xFIP of 3.53.
Against Web, lefties have a .386 wOBA and ISO of .220. But that doesn’t really matter as the Cardinals will likely have only two lefties in the lineup though. With that said, the Cardinals are hitting a .104 ISO and a wOBA of .278 with 17.7% of the line drives against righties this season using their projected lineup.
Therefore, the under is the play in this one. Matz and Webb have kept ISO power numbers down. Both teams have struggled against their respective matchups and should continue to have a hard time against two pitchers that have been very solid to begin the year.
San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals Pick
- Under 7 (-105) (Bet $105 to Win $100)
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Article Author
Jason grew up an avid sports fan. His passion for sports writing grew in high school and he developed a blog that was strictly for New York Sports. From his work, you will quickly realize that he loves looking at games from an analytical and numbers perspective and hopes to provide you with that same perspective in his articles.