Tuesday Game 5 NCLS

Tonite in STL:

We have Tom Glavine opposing Jeff Weaver

Last time out I rode the NY Mets as I expected a bounce back effort from there offense. Tonite I think all of that momentum they had built during a nice 12-5 win was squashed by the RAIN OUT.Now the first thing I know is this LINE is FAT. How can Glavine be -170 at home where he is terrific to -135 @ STL. This isnt some medicore team that has no home field bias....its the St.Louis Cardinals!! Easy answer is simply NY pounded them last game and they can get away with it as they expect money on NY here. Know your lines...


What the average fan misses here is that Glavine just faced them 5 days ago. Glavine does NOT have great stuff he is location guy who has to 'trick' opposing hitters. Its tough to do that to the same lineup twice in a week IMO. It can be done but its not easy. I think Pujols saying his stuff wasnt very good the first time out was telling IMO. How many times has Pujols talked shit or called someone out to your knowledge?? Not often if your asking me, so I really think Glavine did get somewhat lucky 1st time out and Pujols and the gang will be approaching him differently tonite. Remember I am the guy who has been preaching about the Cardinals struggles against LHP. Well that has to be neutralized when suddenly everyday you are facing a LHP...Game 1 they faced Glavine , Game 3 Darren Oliver pitched 6 innings of relief and then Game 4 they see Oliver Perez..alot of pratice so to speak.... and you saw some better swinsg versus Perez.


What really interests me in this game is the total....The Over 9 -109 (now) to be specific. Why??

Well first Tom Glavine has pitched decent in his last 2 starts @ Busch(both old and new). Just not quite as good as the home starts( Home 0 runs in 14 but away 7 runs in 13.1). Glavine on the road this year had a 4.72 ERA and in 17 starts(NYM was 12-5) he lasted 101 innings. That is a shade under 6 innings on average. With a 1.43 WHIP you know baserunners were plentiful. He allowed 14 Hrs and had a 38-57 walk to K ratio. So he basic road start was 6 innings and 3.18 runs allowed..Also note on the road he received 6 runs of support.

Which if you go start to start from April has been FEAST or famine in support of him:

2 ,1 , 13 , 8 , 7 , 9 , 9 , 6 , 2, , 2 , 4 , 10 , 1 , 0 , 8 , 7 , 13.

Lets examine this:

2- against Matt Cain
1- against John Thomson both April starts
2- against Schilling
2- against Zambrano
4- against Arroyo
1- against Traber( only justification is he is LH & after the Nady deal)
0- against Leiber

So thats 10 of 17 starts with at least 6 runs of support and as you can see it was usually 7 or much more. So they hit when Glavine pitches against medicore SP's...Not suprisingly the OVER is 10-7 on the road in Glavines starts. I think last post I explained how well this teams hit RHP on the road and it showed on Sunday. As well as knowing NY can hit that STL pen which had been pitching over its head recently IMO.


Now Weaver from some reason has been awful at home in both stops(LAA & STL). Since the beginning of Sept he has been a much better SP then though. Still he just seems to be a 6 inning guy at best though.

As a Cardinal his starts read (starting with most recent)

5 2/3 Inn 3 runs
5 Inn 5 runs
7 Inn 1run
6 1/3 Inn 5 runs
7 1/3 Inn 1 run
3 1/3 inn 7 runs
4 inn 6 runs

So quite the improvement from his 1st 2 Cards home starts. He also faced NY 5 days ago and did an impressive job of keeping them in check. Although he has better velocity than Glavine he doesnt have overwhelming stuff either. The Over is 5-2 for Weaver at home with both unders being totals above 9 and the rest all 9's or lower. Weaver gets 5.57 runs of support at home.


His pattern of support:

3 , 8 , 2 , 10 , 0 , 6 , 10

Now the 2 and 0 were also strangely his best pitching performances. So does that mean his run support depends on how well he is pitching?? Probably not just an interesting trend...but I wouldnt expect 2 strong starts in a row vs this Mets lineup..

Now the UMP is Jeff Kellogg. I have to say I cant recall a home plate UMP who sees an average of 316 pitches per game....thats alot of pitches...usually leading SP to tire quicker , exit sooner and batters get deeper counts to hit in. So I would say this benefits the hitters. Some might question his O/U record or 9.84 runs per game I dont weight that heavily. I do know he has called 32 games with a AVG total set of 8.94 when he umps. So his 9.84 average does exceed the avg total of a game he calls. Also interesting is Kellogg has called 4 Glavine starts. All a long , long time ago in 2001 and 1999. However it wa interesting that Glavine lost all 4 and while I dont have the boxscores I assume didnt pitch all that well........Lost 8-1 , Lost 6-1 , Lost 5-2 and Lost 9-0 with ATL. I mention this cause Glavine is clearly a SP who depends heavily on the UMP to expand the zone....a tight zone which 316 pitches per game indicates to me is trouble for him.


So I expect a high scoring affair here and will make the Over my bigger play. However I think there is a TON of value on STL tonite and will also be playing that and peak at the ARL. Going to sit and think about how big I want these plays to be...(along the lines of a 7x & 4x ).

Plays
Over 9 -105 (8x)
STL +128 (5x)
Over 5 +105 1st 5 innings (1x)
Prop
Glavine Over 3 runs allowed +103 (1x)

GL