The St Louis Cardinals took out their frustrations on the San Diego Padres Monday night following a lousy six-game road-trip where they went 1-5 against the Pittsburgh Pirates and Washington (D.C.) Nationals. The Cardinals pounded veteran David Wells for seven runs in the fifth and went on to score three additional runs in the inning off San Diego reliever Mike Thompson taking a 10-1 lead. St Louis won the game 10-5. The Padres loss snapped a four-game winning streak.
Tonight the Padres send Cy Young Award favorite RHP Jake Peavey (11-5, 2.30 ERA) to the mound to face the Cardinals and RHP Anthony Reyes (1-10, 6.07 ERA).
Peavy leads all major league pitchers with a microscopic 0.98 ERA on the road. He has only allowed one earned run in one-of-eight road starts this season. In his last outing, Peavy allowed only three hits while striking out 10 in seven innings to beat Arizona 11-0 in Petco Park on Thursday.
The last time Peavy faced the Cardinals (May 11) he held them to three hits over seven innings in a 7-0 shutout victory in Petco Park. He is 2-2 career with a 3.35 ERA against St. Louis.
The Cardinals have been terrible in games Reyes started losing 12-of-14. In the process, his run support ERA of 2.38 is worst in the majors. Reyes is 0-1 with a 3.27 ERA in his two career starts against the Padres.
Oddsmakers at online sports wagering giant Sportsbook.com favor Peavy and the Padres on the money line -152 while Reyes and the Cardinals are getting +142 ml juice as the home underdog. The total is holding at 8.0 with the OVER price at -115 and -105 for the UNDER. The Padres run line -1 ½ (+105) has a nice flavor seeing Peavy’s dominance on the road and the Cardinals lack of run support in games Reyes pitches.
