The St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks had no problems scoring runs in Monday night’s series opener. They’ll hope to get back at it again on Tuesday in Phoenix. The starting pitching should be better in this game, but there’s plenty of value on a Cardinals-Diamondbacks MLB bet in the home run prop markets. Let’s jump into the game’s odds to make a Cardinals-Diamondbacks prediction and find the best bet. And checkout OddsShopper’s analysis for Dinger Tuesday to grab even more positive expected value home run bets!
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Best MLB Cardinals-Diamondbacks Betting Pick & Prediction: Home Run Prop
Cardinals-Diamondbacks Odds
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
Cardinals: +102 | D-Backs: -120
Cardinals -1.5: +155 | D-Backs +1.5: -188
Over 9: -114 | Under 9: -106
The Cardinals defeated the Diamondbacks 10-6 on Monday night, but Tuesday game is expected to have less scoring than that 16-run outburst. The main reason is the starting pitching. Steven Matz takes the hill for the Cardinals against Merrill Kelly of the Diamondbacks. That’s a far cry from a seemingly washed up Adam Wainwright and Ryne Nelson. However, Matz and Kelly may be an improvement, but neither is much more than mediocre. The total for this game is Over/Under 9 runs, so there could still be plenty of scoring.
That’s one reason one home run MLB prop bet may be getting mispriced in this spot. Carson Kelly hasn’t played much this season, but he is expected to be in the lineup against the left-handed Matz. Kelly began his career with the Cardinals before becoming a regular part of the Diamondbacks organization. He’ll form an all-Kelly battery tonight with Merrill Kelly.
Carson Kelly was hit by a pitch in Spring Training and is just rounding back into form after returning from the IL in March. While he is known as more of a defensive catcher and game caller, he still has plenty of pop. He had a down season in 2022 with just seven home runs in 317 ABs. However, Kelly posted thirteen home runs in 2020 and 18 in 2019. He accumulated 304 and 314 ABs in 2022 and 2019, respectively. Kelly is behind the dish in a good matchup against Matz, who has consistently given up power to right-handed bats.
The most important number for this Cardinals-Diamondbacks bet is the price for Kelly to hit a home run. You can grab this prop bet for +900 on FanDuel, which is simply mispriced. Kelly should hit a dinger roughly in roughly 11% of games with these metrics. The bet should have true odds of +777, giving it a 14% positive expected value. Since it only wins about one out of every ten times, you’ll want to stake this bet with .6% of your bank roll using the Kelly Criterion for bankroll management.
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Best Cardinals-Diamondbacks MLB Pick: Carson Kelly Over 0.5 Home Runs (+900) at FanDuel
