Cardinals vs. Dodgers Prediction and Odds for Friday, September 23 (Fixer Upper: Left-Handed Starters Edition)
By Josh Yourish
The Los Angeles Dodgers are not quite the 2001 Mariners, (They would have to win all of their remaining games to equal 116 wins) but they are far and away the best team in baseball. At 104-46 the Dodgers lead their division by 21 games and are already gearing up for the postseason.
The St. Louis Cardinals haven’t officially locked it up yet, but they will be playing in October too and win the NL Central barring a collapse. This is all about playoff seeding for the Cardinals and testing themselves against the NL’s best.
Jose Quintana will pitch for the red birds tonight and Andrew Heaney goes for Los Angeles.
Cardinals vs. Dodgers Odds, Run Line and Total
Cardinals vs. Dodgers Prediction and Pick
So the Dodgers did it again? They took an aging left-handed pitcher who looked to be on the downslope and turned him into a top line starter. Heaney has a 2.66 ERA in 13 starts for the Dodgers this year after having a 5.83 ERA in 23 starts a year ago. Heaney spent most of his career with the Angels, but never performed to this level. Yet, in his age 31 season, he has been fantastic.
It’s a bit of a smaller sample, just 61 innings, but he has that sub-three ERA and is striking out 13.6 batters per nine innings. His longest outing has been six innings and he did get shelled to start off September, but across his last two starts he has pitched nine innings and allowed one earned run.
Jose Quintana is something of a reclamation project too this year and he has a 3.16 ERA between his time in St. Louis and the beginning of the year with Pittsburgh. This will be his 30th start and he has been even more reliable than Heaney. Since coming to St. Louis, the Cardinals have only lost once in nine games with Quintana on the mound. He hasn’t surrendered more than two earned runs in a start as a Cardinal either.
It's like one of those house flipping competitions on HGTV, but it's for left-handed pitchers over 30. Sure the Dodgers did a nice job. They put in a swimming pool and gave the kitchen a nice backsplash, but the Cardinals left-hander got a new foundation and insulation throughout the house. It might not be as flashy, but you know you can count on it when the weather turns cold.
The Cardinals want to prove that they can hang with the top dog and with Quintana on the mound and Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado’s propensity to punish lefties like Heaney, the Cardinals will roll as an underdog tonight.
Pick: Cardinals +157
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