St Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are absolutely on fire right now. They have been winning game after game and are looking to continue that against the Brewers. They hope to distance themselves in the NL Central from them and the Cubs who are both not playing well. The Cardinals are on the road for this series where they are 32-34. They have been putting up a ton of runs and putting teams away early in games to prevent having to rely on their bullpen at all.
Getting the start for the Cardinals in the second game of the series is right-hander
Miles Mikolas. The 31-year-old veteran allowed five runs on eight hits across six innings in his last outing on Thursday against the Rockies. Mikolas is 7-13 this season with a 4.43 ERA and 109 strikeouts. Miles has not claimed a win yet in the month of August; he will look to keep the Cardinals rolling and pick up his first in this one.
As a team St. Louis is hitting .246 with 162 home runs this season. Leading their team in home runs is Paul Goldschmidt with 29. Second baseman Kolten Wong leads with a .272 batting average, and Marcell Ozuna has the most runs batted in with 74. While these guys have the best stats on the team, something to keep in mind is the injuries they have dealt with this year, finally having most of their veterans back they have been able to get the bats absolutely rolling over the past few weeks.
Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers have been right in the mix all season long in the NL Central, but they finally are trailing off, and this series could decide how close it is by the end of the season. They have plenty of talent to get the job done in their lineup, but their lack of depth on the mound is starting to finally show.
Adrian Houser is expected to toe the bump in this game. His last start was also against the Cardinals where he was able to get the win after giving up just three runs (one earned) over five innings. That win brought his record to 6-5 this season with a 3.62 ERA and 85 strikeouts. The 26-year-old has been solid this year, but he needs to pick them up as many wins as possible to keep them in this division race.
Milwaukee is batting .250 as a team with 208 home runs. They can get the job done offensively if their pitching keeps them in the game. They are led on offense by their National League MVP Christian Yelich, the outfielder leads the team with a .329 batting average, 41 home runs, and 89 runs batted in.
What to expect
In this game it is easy to take the Cardinals, but if you can time a hot team’s loss that’s where your bets payout. With Houser on the mound for Milwaukee, I think he will keep them in the game until the Brewers bats can start getting to Mikolas. I will take the Brewers to pull this one off.
