And you thought the NL East was becoming interesting! The NL Central is every bit as exciting now, as the Pittsburgh Pirates have closed to within five games of the St. Louis Cardinals with another shot to cut into that lead on ESPN's Wednesday Night Baseball.
PITCHING MATCHUP
Aces are wild in this one for sure, and live bettors are going to be lined up to bet on the under inning in and inning out.
In the black and gold corner, we have Gerrit Cole. He's 14-5 with a 2.39 ERA, and his 143 strikeouts have him on a pace for career highs.
In the red corner, we have Michael Wacha, who sports a 13-4 record and a 2.92 ERA.
Two men will enter. One man will leave Busch Stadium leading his team to a victory.
It's tough to find reasons to bet against either of these men in live betting. Wacha has a 1.69 ERA against the Pirates and has held them to a .206 batting average against in his career, while Cole has already tossed seven strong innings once this season against the Cardinals and is now sporting a 3.24 career ERA against them.
ADVANCED STATS
Andrew McCutchen is starting to catch fire. He had himself a heck of a week last week, batting .556 with two home runs and eight RBIs. His on base percentage was over .600 for the week, and he had three multi-hit games, each seemingly in a bigger spot than the last.
The Pittsburgh offense is raking as a result. The Bucs have put together an ISO as a team of .189 over the course of the last seven days along with a slugging percentage of .501. Not surprisingly, over their last four games, they have averaged 7.75 runs per game.
TALKING BULLPENS
The Cardinals continue to have one of the best bullpens in baseball to back in live betting. Even if things don't go well for Wacha, Mike Matheny knows that he has a pen which is deep that he can count on.
St. Louis has a lot of hard-throwing men in its pen which can induce a ton of ground balls. The Pirates, who have obviously been slugging the ball a mile of late up and down their order, could be neutralized by a Cardinals relief system which is inducing 47.1 percent ground balls, the third best mark in the game.
Steve Cishek has been a totally different pitcher since his trade from Miami. He has allowed just one run over six frames and has a WHIP of 1.00. You'd like to see his strikeout total up just a bit from a 4.50 K/9, but many of these St. Louis pitchers don't have great K/9s.
Carlos Villanueva, Kevin Siegrist and Trevor Rosenthal all have sub-2.00 ERAs as well, and Jonathan Broxton could get there while pitching for the Cardinals with one more spotless inning.
St. Louis has had this knack for picking up these middle relievers who throw hard but fell on tough times with their current clubs. Now that they are on winners, Cishek and Broxton are once again pitching like All-Stars.
The MLB lines for this Wednesday contest will first be released by BookMaker Sportsbook. Gamble on the game between every half inning with BookMaker's live betting feature. Along with an adjusted in-game moneyline, you can wager on what will happen in the next at-bat or how many runs will be scored in the next inning. Live betting is the most exciting way to play!
Need to fund your account before the big game but don't have your computer? No problem! BookMaker Sportsbook now offers a mobile betting cashier so you can deposit money directly from your smartphone. Don't miss out on getting paid because you couldn't bet. Click here, and deposit at BookMaker now! The ballgame pitting the Pittsburgh Pirates versus the St. Louis Cardinals will commence Wednesday, August 12, 2015 at 8:15 p.m. ET at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, MO. You can watch the contest live on ESPN.
