San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals Prediction: Can Jordan Montgomery, Cardinals Dominate?
J-Mo was roughed up in his last start against the Diamondbacks. Can he bounce back tonight in San Francisco, and can he and the Cardinals dominate? Let’s break it down.
Joey Ruiz - April 24, 2023, 5:21 PM EDT
6 minSan Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals Prediction: Can Jordan Montgomery, Cardinals Dominate?
Both teams in this matchup have been fairly inconsistent to start the season, and both find themselves with losing records through their first 20+ games. Neither team has won more than two games in a row, and both have been very inconsistent with their lack of timely hitting and pitching.
San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals Prediction
The Giants are coming off a series win against the New York Mets, where their bats finally came alive as they were able to put together multiple quality at-bats and innings in a row as they were able to take the final two games of that series against a very solid Mets squad with somewhat of a makeshift lineup of names that many people may not have even heard of.
The Cardinals come into this series against the Giants, winning the series finale against the Seattle Mariners, but the Cardinals have struggled mightily in the first game of their series in this young 2023 MLB season. The Cardinals have yet to win a series opener in 2023, which is fairly odd to see, considering this will now be their eighth series of the year.
Their starter tonight, Jordan Montgomery, had his worst start of the season in his last outing against the Arizona Diamondbacks, as he gave up seven earned runs and ten hits in just four innings of work. Montgomery was rolling along until he completely lost command and the sharpness of his stuff in the fourth inning, as he gave up six runs in that frame as he was chased from the game. While this may have been his worst performance as a cardinal, this is a fantastic spot for him to redeem himself and put together a solid outing.
Overall, the Giants are not a very solid hitting team against left-handed pitchers this season. As a team, the Giants are ranked 27th in slugging percentage and 24th in average at just above .200 against left-handed pitchers. Montgomery also pitched extremely well in his first three starts the season against the Toronto Blue Jays, Milwaukee Brewers, and Pittsburgh Pirates, who have very solid lineups and are all very solid teams so far in this young season. In Montgomery’s lone road start of the season, he diced up the Brewers as he threw seven shutout innings while striking out nine and only allowing three hits.
It is yet to be seen whether this will be a sustained successful road trend for Montgomery. Still, I do believe this successful outing against the Brewers proves that he is exceptionally capable of providing a shutdown start on the road, which a lot of pitchers in today’s game struggle with. Another thing I find puzzling about this game is that the Cardinals are lined as favorites even with Montgomery’s ERA being over two runs higher than his counterpart, Alex Cobb, for the Giants, who enters this game with a 2.79 ERA.
This is a line indicator that I like to look for as it usually points towards positive regression for the picture with a higher ERA when he’s being lined as a favorite, like in this scenario for tonight’s game. Being said, I am rolling with Cardinals F5 ML at -115 and Cardinals Full Game ML at -118 for 1U each as my most confident MLB Plays of the Day.
San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals Picks
- Cardinals F5 ML -115 is currently the best odds. Click here to find out which sportsbook has the best odds for this pick
- Cardinals Full Game ML -118 is currently the best odds. Click here to find out which sportsbook has the best odds for this pick
MLB Odds
