Cardinals vs. Dodgers preview
The first Sunday Night Baseball broadcast of the 2024 season features the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers. The 7 p.m. ET first pitch will be thrown by Gavin Stone and the Cardinals will counter with Steven Matz, as the Dodgers look for a series win and the Redbirds look for a split after yesterday’s extra-inning triumph.
When I write these Sunday Night Baseball previews, the picks won’t be tracked like they are for my daily article that runs Monday-Saturday, but we will try to get you some Sunday baseball content in the form of a preview and some predictions for the ESPN game.
How to Watch Cardinals vs. Dodgers
How: ESPN
When: Sunday March 31, 7:00 p.m. ET
Where: Dodger Stadium
Cardinals vs. Dodgers MLB Odds
Dodgers: -180
Padres: +150
Total: 9 (+100/-120)
Odds current from DraftKings at time of publish
MLB Odds | Vegas MLB Odds | MLB Betting Splits
Cardinals vs. Dodgers Preview
Much like we saw on Friday for the game against Zack Thompson, the Dodgers will be throwing out their left-handed lineup here, which means emptying the bench to get as many right-handed sticks in there as possible. If the lineup looks the same, the Dodgers will have six righties out there against Matz, with the lefties being Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Max Muncy.
Matz pitched to a 3.86 ERA with a 3.75 FIP last season over 105 innings of work. He’s been a useful arm more often than not throughout his career, but health is an ongoing issue. He’s topped 150 innings once since 2019. He was slowed down by an injury early in Spring Training, but he did make five starts in March in hopes of building up for the season. Unfortunately, he allowed 13 runs on 21 hits out of 69 batters faced in 14.1 innings.
Stone gets a crack in the rotation to start the year, largely due to the MLB-caliber starting rotation on the injured list for the Dodgers that includes Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin, and Dustin May. Stone worked 31 innings at the big league level last season and allowed 31 earned runs for a 9.00 ERA. He had a 6.64 FIP and a 6.40 xERA, as he didn’t miss a lot of bats and surrendered eight homers in four starts and four relief efforts.
He had 120 strikeouts in 100.2 innings at Triple-A with a 4.74 ERA, but you do have to take ERAs and other run metrics with a grain of salt in the Pacific Coast League, where most of the parks play a lot like Coors Field. He did throw the ball well in Spring Training with five runs allowed on nine hits over 14 innings with a 13/2 K/BB ratio.
Both bullpens have gotten a little work in over the last two days. Closer Evan Phillips has worked back-to-back days for the Dodgers and Joe Kelly had a blown save over a 24-pitch appearance yesterday. Ryan Helsley threw 27 pitches for the Cardinals and Giovanny Gallegos has thrown 47 pitches over the last two days, while JoJo Romero has thrown 35.
Keep an eye on the weather tonight because rain is once again hanging around the Los Angeles area and a delay that forces the starters out early will put some pressure on both bullpens. Matthew Liberatore is the long man for the Cardinals and he threw 47 pitches yesterday. Ryan Yarbrough threw 44 pitches on Thursday for the Dodgers and Kyle Hurt and Michael Grove have each worked over the last couple days.
Matz was touching 97 in the Spring and seemed to be really happy with where things were. Stone had good Spring numbers, but I’m still unconvinced he’s ready for the big league level.
I’d say Cardinals +150 for the 1st 5 is a worthwhile wager in this one.
Pick: Cardinals +150
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