St Louis (62-56) at Houston (61-57)
When: Tuesday, August 16th 2016
Where: Minute Maid Park, Houston, TX
Time: 8:10 ET | TV: FSN Midwest, ROOT SW
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The St. Louis Cardinals visit the Houston Astros to begin a brief two-game interleague series on Tuesday night. The Cardinals are riding high after a couple of big comebacks wins over the Cubs this past weekend and are now tied with Miami for the final NL Wild Card spot. St. Louis scored six runs in the eighth inning on Saturday and five in the eighth on Sunday to upend the NL Central leading Cubbies. St. Louis leads the NL with 162 homers and has at least two in six straight games. The Astros have followed up a four-game winning streak by losing their last two in Toronto. The series versus the Cardinals marks the only two home games in a stretch of 16 games for Houston, which is 5.5 games behind the Blue Jays for the second wild card in the American League. Astros 2B Jose Altuve, who leads the majors with a .362 batting average, is hitting .364 in 26 games versus the Cardinals.
Pitchers: Cardinals – Jaime Garcia (9-8, 3.93 ERA) | Astros – Dallas Keuchel (7-11, 4.56)
Jaime Garcia has won his last two starts in impressive fashion going eight innings in each against Atlanta and Cincinnati. The Astros have feasted off Garcia in his career to the tune of a 6.15 ERA.
Dallas Keuchel is coming off his first complete game and shutout of the season when he defeated Texas 5-0 last week. Keuchel had received a total of six runs of offensive support during a four-start winless drought prior to his last outing. Keuchel has made two appearances against St. Louis (none since 2013) and allowed eight runs in 6.2 innings.
Both pitchers are coming in hot, but the Astros have had success getting to Garcia in the past. I think Keuchel is getting back into his 2015 form. He’s only had one bad outing in the last two months and that was against a red-hot Tigers team at the time. The Astros will get to Garcia, who doesn’t pitch that well on the road (5.04 ERA).
Pick: Astros -145
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