Cubs/Cards OVER 8.5

Summer has come early to St. Louis, with a hot and humid evening with a strong wind blowing out, and that leaves us with excellent value to back a hot offense, and an offense that has been under-valued off of recent outings, against two pitchers that they just faced, and can get good swings against.

The Cardinals are smacking the ball around quite well right now, with eight straight games of five runs or more, and 23 runs against the Mets in this homestand despite never batting in the 9th inning. They lead the N.L. in runs by a wide margin, with only the Dodgers within 1.0 runs per game of their average, and they are first in doubles and home runs, and second in walks. Although we are not convinced that Brendan Ryan’s .304 has much chance to hold up, there is not an easy out anywhere, and that includes Adam Wainwright, who has hit .289 with four home runs in 132 at-bats the last 3+ seasons. They scored four runs against Ryan Dempster in six innings at Wrigley last week, and we will be taking a posture most of the season that Dempster can not repeat his 17-6/2.96 of 2008, which was far outside of his career parameters. With 10 walks in his first 18 innings, with at lest three in every start, and more fly ball outs than ground outs, pencil him as vulnerable here.

Meanwhile the Cubs also scored four runs in six innings off of Wainwright last week, including a home run from Kosuke Fukudome, and after being hand-cuffed by Aaron Harang and Johnny Cueto the last two games we get excellent timing for their pendulums here. With many of the key cogs off to good starts (five of the top six spots in the order will bring batting averages of .317 or higher) there is no reason to believe that the last two games were anything more than running into guys that had great stuff. That has not been the case with Wainwright, whose 2-0/3.31 masks the fact that he has allowed 26 base-runners in 16.1 innings, with a walk rate that is particularly alarming, and behind him Tony LaRussa continues to search for the best bullpen rotation, without necessarily finding the answers.