The City of St. Louis is buzzing about the possible return of Albert
Pujols.
Pujols has been on the disabled list since suffering a broken hand in a
game against the Royals. He wasn’t expected to return until August but after undergoing
batting practice and taking infield on Monday, Prince Albert reported no pain.
Today is the first day he can come off the DL but word on his
availability isn’t expected until closer to game time. Having Pujols back in the lineup would be a huge
boost for the Cardinals especially with Matt Holliday struggling. Pujols was
starting to come around at the plate before he got hurt and had raised his
average to .279 with 17 homers and 45 runs batted.
Dandy Duel
Tonight’s pitching
matchup promises to be a good one. Edinson Volquez (5-3, 5.65 ERA) is
slated to go for the Reds. He’s 1-2 in five career starts against St. Louis and
was the losing pitcher on April 24 dropping a 3-1 decision to the Cardinals. Manager
Dusty Baker will need to have the Reds bullpen given as how Volquez has only
gone seven innings once this year. That’s well short of his opposite number
Jamie Garcia who has thrown two complete games and given St. Louis nine quality
starts.
Meanwhile Garcia (7-3,
3.33) will be out to improve on an impressive 4-1 home record and 0.88 ERA. He’s
also unbeaten in his career against Cincinnati going a perfect 4-0 with a 3.70
ERA.
Garcia opened in the baseball betting as a -155 moneyline favorite with a total of 8. Game time is
7:10 PM ET from Busch Stadium.
Pitcher’s duel
Chris Carpenter, working as a -120 betting odds favorite outpitched Johnny Cueto on Monday night as the Cards
beat the Reds 1-0. Both pitchers worked eight innings and allowed six hits with
Cueto getting credit for a complete game. Joey Votto had three of Cincinnati’s
hits while Mark Hamilton had a pinch-hit infield single to score Colby Rasmus
with the only run of the game.
The victory,
coupled with Milwaukee’s 8-6 loss to Arizona, moved the Cardinals into sole
possession of first in the National League Central one-game ahead of Milwaukee,
1 ½ games in front of Pittsburgh with Cincinnati three games off the lead.
St. Louis (46-40)
is now 17-13 against the Central Division and 29-27 against the rest of
baseball including an 8-7 interleague mark. The Reds (43-43) are 24-15 within
the division but were just 6-12 in interleague play. This will be the eighth
meeting of the year between the two longtime rivals with Cincinnati taking four of the first seven
meetings.
It’s been no Holliday
My, how the
baseball fortunes can change. The last time these two teams met in May, Matt
Holliday led the majors in batting with a .398 average. Since then he’s hitting
.226 and has lost 82 points off his average. You can count him as one the
people who will be happy to see Pujols come back.
Lance Berkman has
carried the load for the Cardinals hitting .295 with 22 home runs and 61 runs
batted in. Overall St. Louis is second in hitting (.269) and fifth in scoring
(4.64).
The Reds are fourth
in runs per game (4.71), ninth in hitting (.264) and eighth in home runs (91).
Joey Votto leads in batting (.318) and RBI’s (52) while Jay Bruce has 18 homers
and 51 runs batted in.
The Busch Stadium
forecast is calling for mostly clear skies and temperatures in the 80’s.
Harvey’s Take: It’s tough to go against Garcia
especially at Busch Stadium. His ERA is under a buck and he’s lost just once. I’ll
side with him tonight and I’ll make a small play on the under.
Good Luck.