Cardinals vs. Brewers Odds & Pick 9/20/21

When: 7:40 p.m., Monday, September 20

Where: American Family Field, Milwaukee

Moneyline: STL +195/MIL -215 (Bookmaker – Biggest sportsbook on the web!)

Runline: Cardinals +1.5/Brewers -1.5

Total: 8

Starting Pitchers: Jake Woodford (2-3, 4.30 ERA, 1.39 WHIP) vs. Freddy Peralta (9-4, 2.57 ERA, 0.95 WHIP)

Back From the Dead

At the trade deadline, the Cardinals appeared to be well on their way to a lost season, making it seem like their insistence on holding their chips at the end of July seemed like a shortsighted move. Guess again, as the Cardinals have rocketed out of the grave, they dug and put themselves in a position to claim the second wild card in the National League.
They’re now on an eight-game winning streak, and even better, they’ve done it against the Reds and Padres, giving them a three-game cushion on Cincinnati and 3.5 on San Diego. The Cardinals now have 14 games to play, and all of their remaining games are against the Cubs and the Brewers.

That could pay off in a big way because Milwaukee has virtually nothing to play for over the final two weeks of the season. The Brewers sit 11.5 games ahead of St. Louis, and they can’t realistically catch up to the Giants (and probably don’t want to anyway, given the reward would be the wild card winner). How the Brewers approach this situation will go a long way to determining whether St. Louis can finish the job.

Nailing It Down

There is one issue with the standings that could work against St. Louis: how badly does Milwaukee want to get winning the NL Central out of the way? All Milwaukee has to do is get two wins out of seven against the Cardinals, and the division is theirs, so the Brewers could clinch the division on Tuesday if they can take care of business and not worry about the remaining 13 games.

A split of this series would be just fine with the Brewers and wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for the Cardinals, as they probably wouldn’t lose too much ground elsewhere. Given that the Brewers have the chance to clinch in front of their home fans this week, there’s reason to think that Milwaukee is going to be taking this very seriously.

Bad Memories

However, as serious as Milwaukee is taking this game, there’s a big problem here: Freddy Peralta got drilled by St. Louis in this same ballpark, lasting just two innings in a 15-4 loss to the Redbirds. In fact, division games have been the biggest issues for Peralta as of late, as the only three games in the past ten where Peralta has given up more than two runs came against Cincinnati and St. Louis twice.

The one good thing Peralta has done lately against the Cardinals is record strikeouts, as he’s fanned six hitters in his past four innings against St. Louis. But when the ball gets put in play — and St. Louis is doing that more often lately against Peralta — the Brewers aren’t making enough plays to keep runs from scoring. Milwaukee needed to bail Peralta out both times in his previous two appearances against St. Louis, and the Brewers aren’t hitting well enough to make that a reasonable expectation.

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Betting Trends

• The Cardinals are 10-1 in their past 11 games overall.
• The Cardinals are 4-0 in their past four as an underdog.
• The Brewers are 4-1 in their past five home games.
• The Brewers are 35-17 in their past 52 games overall.
• The over is 4-1 in the Cardinals’ past five games overall.
• The over is 6-2 in the Cardinals’ past eight road games.
• The over is 6-1 in the Brewers’ past seven home games.
• The over is 4-0 in the Brewers’ past four against the NL Central.
• The over is 4-1 in the teams’ past five meetings.
• Eleven of the teams’ past 12 meetings have been decided on the run line.

Weather Report

With temperatures at 76 degrees and partly cloudy temperatures, expect the Brewers to leave the roof open for this one. Winds will blow in from the right-field corner at 11 miles per hour, sending balls toward the third-base line.

Dan’s Pick

Peralta is not pitching well against St. Louis right now, and based on that, there’s no way I’m going to lay that kind of juice with him in this matchup. Given that these teams do not play close games against each other, I might actually

reverse the runline here and take St. Louis -1.5 at +300.

However, if you’re not willing to be that aggressive, I think you’ll be fine backing the Cardinals on the moneyline here. Rough football weekend? Instead of re-depositing at your book, you may want to consider maximizing your money by taking advantage of a 50% real cash bonus at one of the best sportsbooks on the web –> Bovada Sportsbook!