Despite a rather embarrassing loss to the Cardinals on Saturday, the Chicago Cubs still have to be feeling good about the way they're playing with increased offensive output helping them to three wins in the last four games.
Now, a golden chance to capture a second series in three tries will present itself when Justin Steele takes the ball on Sunday night opposite Miles Mikolas.
The Cubs lefty certainly took a step back in the month of July, surrendering 12 runs across his final three starts, but the Cardinals have also had their fair share of struggles offensively of late. Mikolas, meanwhile, turned in his best month of the season, but has had some issues with the Cubs that could present themselves again here.
Can Chicago continue to ride the wave and move further into striking position in the NL wild-card race? Let's get into my Sunday Night Baseball preview and Cardinals vs Cubs prediction and pick.
St Louis Cardinals vs Chicago Cubs Odds & Prediction
| St. Louis Cardinals Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
+120 | 9 -112o / -108u | +1.5 -166 |
| Chicago Cubs Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
-142 | 9 -112o / -108u | -1.5 +140 |
St Louis Cardinals vs Chicago Cubs Projected Starting Pitchers
| RHP Miles Mikolas (STL) | Stat | LHP Justin Steele (CHC) |
|---|---|---|
| 8-8 | W-L | 2-5 |
| 1.4 | fWAR (FanGraphs) | 2.1 |
| 4.99/4.39 | ERA /xERA | 3.38/3.08 |
| 4.27/4.24 | FIP / xFIP | 3.31/3.76 |
| 1.23 | WHIP | 1.11 |
| 12.3 | K-BB% | 16.9 |
| 41.6 | GB% | 42.8 |
| 87 | Stuff+ | 100 |
| 108 | Location+ | 102 |
Kenny Ducey's Cardinals vs Cubs Prediction, Pick, Preview
St. Louis Cardinals Betting Preview: Mikolas' Spotty History vs. Cubs
The Cardinals haven't been the hottest at the dish over the last two weeks, posting a 101 wRC+ to rank 17th in the league, but they remain the rather mediocre offense they've been all season long. This team is actually hitting for slightly more power overall and striking out in fewer plate appearances, but the lone difference in its approach over the last two weeks has come in the form of a an uptick in ground balls.
That should help in a park which has been just as unkind to fly balls as the one they call home in St. Louis, though it also figures to play into the hands of Steele. One other factor that should come into play is the fact that it's ranked just 27th in wRC+ to southpaws and 11th versus righties, with a considerable drop in Isolated Power (ISO) from .150 to .120.
While the bats may continue to slog through this one, Mikolas also must have his guard up against the Cubs, who torched him for six runs on eight hits in St. Louis last month, which included four home runs. He now owns a 5.09 ERA against Chicago this season in 17 2/3 innings, though he's struck out an impressive 13 batters in those frames.
Chicago Cubs Betting Preview: Not Out of the Wild-Card Race Yet
It seems that almost every team in baseball has some sort of shot to make the postseason, and the Cubs are no exception. After winning a few games late this week, they're now just six games out of the wild card in the National League with another couple months of baseball to play. A win here would only move them closer, too, with the two teams directly ahead of them in the standings playing each other on Sunday.
Steele has been an interesting case this year, beginning his campaign in rocky fashion around a hamstring injury that he suffered in his first start of the year. His ground-ball rate is down from around 50% in his first three major-league seasons to just 42.8% this season, a number that's fallen slightly with each month this year.
His Expected Batting Average (xBA) remains excellent, however, coming in at .228 ahead of this start and his .337 Expected Slugging is around 70 points lower than the league norm. The strikeouts may be falling ever so slightly, but Steele remains effective when pitching to contact.
Speaking of contact, the Cubs have been making more of it with a lower 21.1% strikeout rate over the last two weeks and an ISO 10 points higher than their season average. They may not be walking nearly as much as we grew accustomed to seeing early in the year, but this team's shown the ability to impact the ball of late and has now scored 15 runs in three games against St. Louis after breaking out for 13 runs in a win over the Reds on Wednesday.
Cardinals vs Cubs Prediction, Betting Analysis
The Cubs are certainly the offense worth believing in here, putting forth some solid numbers over the last 14 days and entering with a solid .258 average to ground-ball pitchers this year, which should help them get to a vulnerable Mikolas who has struggled to pitch to this offense in 2024.
Steele may be coming off a disappointing July, but his solid expected numbers have remained steady in the last few months and working against a team which has really only thrived in the slugging department, you'd trust a guy wearing one of the better xSLG marks in baseball to get the job done. That becomes particularly true when you factor in the favorable platoon split here.
The Cubs have earned the right to call themselves favorites in this one, and I'm willing to believe in the line set by oddsmakers and drink the juice.
Pick: Cubs ML (-145)
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Moneyline
This line has been all over the place, opening around -150 on Saturday before some money pushed the Cubs out to -155 to win. We saw some fluctuation between that number and the opening line before steadying just over -145 on aggregate.
St. Louis has received some sharp action on the moneyline, and as of this writing we've tracked 23% of the bets but a heavier 29% of the handle coming in on the Cardinals.
Run Line (Spread)
The Cubs are now 4-1 against the run line in their last five games, while the Cardinals are 2-3 over this stretch and have gone just 25-32 to the spread in their road games this year. With that said, St. Louis has covered the run line in 67.8% of games where it's come in as the underdog and in 60% of games played as the road 'dog.
Chicago, meanwhile, is just 8-29 against the run line as home favorites.
Over/Under
This one should certainly tilt toward the Cubs, but with the way both pitchers worked in the month of July it would certainly seem that this game should be low-scoring.
The Under is cashing in 55.6% of Cubs home games and has gone 24-13-3 when St. Louis plays as an underdog away from home. A potential landmine here, however is that the Over has cashed in the last six Cardinals games and in eight of their last nine.
Still, I would think two teams that, at best, are average offenses should fail to do enough damage at a pitcher's park against two arms that have exhibited the ability over the years to record outs on contact. There's simply not enough power on either side to really be terrified.
