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The St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Braves square off on Thursday with first pitch set for 7:20 p.m. ET. The game takes place at Truist Park in Smyrna, GA and will only be available on local TV or through an MLB.tv subscription. Matthew Liberatore (2-1, 5.66 ERA) will start for the Cardinals with Spencer Strider (4-2, 2.87 ERA) on the mound for the Braves.
St. Louis (44-40) will look to avoid a five-game losing streak on Thursday night. Liberatore will make his sixth start in his rookie year and has a 5.66 ERA, coming off an outing where he allowed 5 runs over 2.2 innings of work against the Philadelphia Phillies. The Cardinals scored 3 or fewer runs in six of their last seven games, and Paul Goldschmidt is tied for second in the MLB with 65 RBIs.
Atlanta (49-34) will go for the four-game sweep of the Cardinals with a victory in this matchup. The Braves will also begin with a rookie on the mound as Spencer Strider will make his 19th appearance and eighth start of the season with a 2.87 ERA. Atlanta ranks No. 1 in slugging percentage (.443), and Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario both homered in yesterday’s victory.
Cardinals vs. Braves
Pitchers: Matthew Liberatore vs. Spencer Strider
First pitch: 7:20 p.m. ET
Cardinals local broadcast: Bally Sports Midwest
Braves local broadcast: Bally Sports South
Live stream: MLB.tv (subscription)
Odds, picks & predictions
Run Line: Braves -1.5 (-115)
Run total: 9.5
Moneyline odds: Braves -215, Cardinals +185
Moneyline pick: Braves -215
Both teams will roll out rookie pitchers on the mound, but the Braves starter has been much better as Strider is among the favorites to win the NL Rookie of the Year award. It’s tough to bet on the Cardinals with the lack of consistency with Liberatore through a limited sample size and the recent struggles of the St. Louis offense.
Player prop pick: Spencer Strider Under 7.5 strikeouts (-150)
Strider is putting up ridiculously high strikeout numbers with a 13.6 K/9 this season, but that is obviously not a sustainable statistic. Eventually, those numbers will dip, and Strider will face the St. Louis lineup that strikes out 7.7 times per game, the sixth-fewest in the league.
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