This weekend, the St. Louis Cardinals went to Pittsburgh with a chance to launch themselves up into the NL Central race, but instead were swept and left in last place at 25-35.
Meanwhile, the Texas Rangers, their opponents in the 2011 World Series, dominated their division rivals, the Seattle Mariners.
The Rangers swept Seattle and scored 30 runs in three games while allowing just nine. Texas has the second best record in baseball at 38-20.
For Game 1, the Cardinals will send Adam Wainwright to the mound. Though he was injured for all of 2011, he is the only player still on the roster from that year. Wainwright will make his sixth start of the season and is 2-1 with a 6.15 ERA in his previous five.
On the other side will be Martin Perez, who was called up to the Rangers in 2012 and is back with the team. Perez is 6-1 with a 4.43 ERA.
Let's get into the odds for this matchup.
Cardinals vs. Rangers odds, run line and total
Cardinals vs. Rangers prediction and pick
The Texas Rangers have the best lineup in baseball. This most recent stretch of great play has made that clear, especially as the Rays have been unable to maintain their torrid pace from April.
This should be another high-scoring game because in Wainwright's five starts there have been double digit runs scored in four of them. The other was a 7-0 loss his last time out.
He has given up 37 hits in 26.1 innings with eight walks and only 16 strikeouts. He has figured out how to be successful every other year in his illustrious career, but his age 41 season is off to a rough start.
The Rangers are red hot and Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, Josh Jung, and Jonah Heim all have an OPS over 1.000 in the past seven days leading up to this series.
For the season they have scored 21 more runs than any other team and just about any way you break it down this is the highest scoring offense in baseball, over the last 30 days, 15 days and last week. They haven't had a slow week in a long time, so I'm ready to blindly trust their offense night after night.
The Cardinals may only need to contribute a run or two to get this game into double-digits and cash the over.
They should be capable of doing it because Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt have always crushed left-handed pitchers like Perez. Especially after Perez gave up six runs last time out and has a FIP north of five.
It feels like we shouldn't overthink this and just take the over with how good the Rangers lineup is.
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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change
