The St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds will do battle in Ohio’s Great American Ballpark in what should be a high-scoring affair early in the day. Let’s dive into the betting odds for Thursday afternoon’s Cardinals-Reds contest to make our MLB predictions and identify the best bet. We’re backing both offenses to put runs on the board while trusting one side to emerge victorious with this parlay.
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Best MLB Cardinals-Reds Bet & Prediction: Runs Come Cheap in Cincinnati
St. Louis Cardinals-Cincinnati Reds Odds
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
St. Louis Cardinals: – | Cincinnati Reds: +
Over 8.5: +100 | Under 8.5: -122
The St. Louis Cardinals are a road favorite over the lowly Cincinnati Reds. St. Louis will start RHP Miles Mikolas (2-1), whose unimpressive 4.77 ERA should be worse, which his 5.36 xERA indicates. The Reds will trot out veteran RHP Luke Weaver (1-2), whose 6.54 ERA inspires much less confidence. He owns a solid 4.69 xERA, but the hitter-friendly Great American Ballpark has certainly done him no favors. Only Coors Field has been more generous to hitters over the last three seasons. With two struggling pitchers taking the mound in Cincinnati, it’s no surprise to see the total inflated to 10.5.
The Cardinals should have a massive edge on offense. St. Louis ranks second in weighted on-base average, or wOBA, at .363. That’s a little more than their expected weighted on-base average, or xwOBA, which slots in at .349, but they still rank fourth in that metric. In contrast, the Reds rank 23rd in wOBA (.308) and 29th in xwOBA (.298), likely beating expectations so significantly because of their hitter-friendly home park. The Cardinals tend to hit worse on the road than at home, as their OPS dips from .815 in St. Louis to .738 in away games, but, through the first two games of this series, the Cardinals owned an OPS of .851 in Cincinnati.
The opening two matchups between these teams produced more than 10 runs. With a lineup chock full of right-handed power hitters like Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt, it’s not surprising to see St. Louis put so many runs on the board. When the books have hung a total this high in Cincinnati, the Reds and their opponents have usually found a way to beat it. The Reds were 5-2 to the over with a double-digit total when playing at home as of publication. Although there’s a chance their game on Wednesday night stays under, I’m reasonably confident Thursday afternoon’s game will go over, especially with the low-quality pitching on the mound.
I expect a relatively high-scoring affair from which the Cardinals emerge victorious behind their far more impressive batting order. Both teams should score runs a-plenty after having played three in a row before this one, wearing out the relievers. We can buy a moneyline/total runs double-result parlay with odds of +180 (35.7%) at FanDuel Sportsbook. This same wager would cost us +170 at DraftKings. If you haven’t signed up for FanDuel yet, you can get a no-sweat first bet worth up to $1,000!
Best Cardinals-Reds MLB Bet: Cardinals/Over 10.5 +180 at FanDuel
