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The San Francisco Giants take on the St. Louis Cardinals. Check out our MLB odds series for our Giants Cardinals prediction and pick.
Logan Webb gets the start for the Giants, while Jordan Hicks takes the mound for the Cardinals.
Logan Webb, the Giants' staff ace, started the year brilliantly with two dominant starts. Then he struggled and has found it hard to regain his top form. He has a 3.82 ERA. Usually, pitchers struggle in the colder April weather and then, as the season moves along and they log more starts, they get into more of a rhythm and their mechanics become sharper and crisper. Not so for Webb, who looked very strong at the start of the season but has then fallen into a rut. He gave up two runs in 14 innings in his first two starts. Then he gave up 13 runs in 21 1/3 innings in his next four starts. He didn't pitch well against the Cardinals this past Saturday, May 7, giving up four runs and eight hits in five very bumpy innings. Maybe seeing the St. Louis batting order a second time in a week will enable him to make adjustments and improve.
Jordan Hicks has a 3.78 ERA. He faced the Giants last Friday in San Francisco and pitched 4 1/3 innings, his longest outing of the season. Hicks had previously thrown a number of two-inning relief stints, but he was given a longer look last Friday. He was decent, giving up two runs in a game the Cardinals eventually won. It will be interesting to see how long the Cardinals let him pitch in this game, and how his role evolves over the course of the 2022 season. This is certainly something to study when you formulate a Giants Cardinals prediction.
Courtesy of FanDuel, here are the Giants-Cardinals MLB odds.
MLB Odds: Giants-Cardinals Odds
San Francisco Giants: -1.5 (+146)
St. Louis Cardinals: +1.5 (-176)
Over: 7.5 (-108)
Under: 7.5 (-112)
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Why The Giants Could Cover the Spread
The Giants were struggling a week ago. They lost back-to-back games to St. Louis at home, on May 5 and 6. Then they scored 13 against the Cardinals on Saturday, May 7, and have not looked back since. San Francisco started a five-game winning streak last Saturday on the back end of that four-game set versus the Cardinals. It has scored 41 runs in those five wins, and 37 in four of those five games, after being impotent the previous week against the Dodgers and in the first two games against the Cardinals. This team has figured some things out. More precisely, getting Brandon Belt and LaMonte Wade back in the lineup have been hugely important. The Giants are confident, and Logan Webb is not going to keep struggling. If he pitches near his capabilities, the Giants should have more than enough offense for him.
Why The Cardinals Could Cover the Spread
After losing two of three at home to the Baltimore Orioles, you are going to see a very motivated and focused Cardinal team. This club has way too much talent to be getting dusted by the Orioles at home, but it happened. It has been that kind of a week in Major League Baseball. The Dodgers lost a series to the Pirates, and the Brewers lost a series to the Reds. Lots of strange things happen all the time, but over the course of 162 games, good teams find ways to correct themselves, and the Cardinals showed that with their September rally last season. St. Louis will bounce back. That's something to think about when arriving at a Giants Cardinals pick.
Also note that Logan Webb has gone several starts without his A-game and his best stuff. Until he regains that winning edge, some skepticism is warranted.
Final Giants-Cardinals Prediction & Pick
If Logan Webb improves compared to his last start against the Cardinals, the Giants should be fine. That's a bet worth making.
Final Giants-Cardinals Prediction & Pick: Giants -1.5
