Sunday Night Baseball Betting Breakdown

Welcome to the FTN’s free MLB Sunday Night Baseball preview featuring our favorite or best MLB bet of the night. FTN will be posting a play or two from the MLB card — for free!

Today, Eric Pauly provides his pick.

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Atlanta Braves @ St. Louis Cardinals

Braves +100, Cardinals -120, Total 8, Caesars Sportsbook
SP: Jake Odorizzi (R) vs. Adam Wainwright (R)

This week’s edition of Sunday Night Baseball features two of the hottest teams in the league. The Braves and Cardinals are both 21-9 in their last 30 games, which is tied with the Mets for the second-best record in the bigs. The Braves took the first game of this series 11-4, and the Cardinals took the second game 6-5 in walkoff fashion. 

Righty Jake Odorizzi will make the start for the Braves on Sunday night. Odorizzi, in 16 starts this season, has a 3.95 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and 4.21 FIP. His last start was on the road against the Pirates, and it was one of his better starts of the season. Odorizzi allowed one run on one hit with seven strikeouts over six innings of work. 

Atlanta is 2-1 in Odorizzi’s road starts this season, but he has been more hittable when he is not pitching at Truist Park. His ERA, WHIP and FIP all drop, but on the road, batters have a higher batting average on balls in play, slugging percentage, on-base percentage and average. 

Most of Odorizzi’s good road outings this year have come against lesser teams like the Pirates, Athletics and Rangers. The Cardinals lineup runs circles around these two teams – St. Louis has the sixth-best team OPS at home and OPS versus righties this season. In the month of August, St. Louis’s lineup leads MLB in OPS, they are third in runs scored, first in hits and first in home runs. 

Adam Wainwright is making the start for the Cardinals, and he will also have his hands full with a hot offense. The Braves have scored the second-most runs in August, they have the third-best OPS and the fourth-most hits and home runs. 

Wainwright, the veteran, has had a great season with a 3.11 ERA, 3.62 FIP and 1.17 ERA in 25 starts. His last two home starts were two of his best of the season. Wainwright threw a complete-game three-hitter against the Brewers then followed that up by allowing no runs on just three hits against the Rockies.

Wainwright’s success at home in his past two outings is no fluke. His splits are much better at home this year. In 85.1 innings at home, Wainwright has a 2.11 ERA, 218 batting average against, 1.03 WHIP and 3.01 FIP. St. Louis is 8-5 this season in home games with Wainwright taking the rubber.  

Looking at this matchup, my numbers are pointing toward the Cardinals, and I like them on the moneyline. St. Louis has the better pitcher going in this matchup, and I think that will be all the difference tonight. The Braves lead the season series 4-2, but after Sunday Night Baseball, it will be 4-3. 

Play: STL ML -120