The Pittsburgh Pirates enter this game having won four of their last five games and are on a four-game winning streak which includes a 4-2 win in extra innings on the road against the St. Louis Cardinals in game one of the series with the winning runs coming in the 10^th inning which included Andrew McCutchen scoring off a sacrifice fly ball hit by Bryan Reynolds. The Pirates now have a record of 62-73 which puts them six wins away from going over their over/under win total of 67.5 games this season, however, the Pirates have been eliminated from playoff contention as Pittsburgh has the 4^th worst record in the National League and sit eight games behind the San Francisco Giants for the final Wild Card spot.

This season has been one of the worst seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals in recent memory as they are 19 games below .500 and are 12 games behind the San Francisco Giants for the final Wild Card spot in the National League with a record of 58-77. The Cardinals entered the season with an over/under win total of 88.5 wins, but they will not surpass that win total this season. St. Louis has not finished with a losing record since the 2007 MLB season in which they finished with a record of 78-84 which will likely still be better compared to this year. The Cardinals saw their two-game winning streak come to an end on Friday as they lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates at home by a score of 2-4. Willson Contreras accounted for one of the runs when he hit a one-run home run in the 6^th inning.

BookMaker has the St. Louis Cardinals listed as -182 money line favorites at home against the Pittsburgh Pirates in game two of the series on Saturday. Pittsburgh has won by an average margin of 1.6 runs per game over the last ten and 1 run per game over the last three games in the series.

Neither pitcher has had a great season this season as Pittsburgh will send Bailey Falter to the mound while St. Louis will send Drew Rom to the mound for game two of the series on Saturday. Falter is 1-8 this season with a 5.04 ERA while recording 49 strikeouts while Rom is 0-2 on the year with an ERA of 8.00 and has recorded ten strikeouts over nine innings pitched in his rookie season.

In his last three starts this season, Bailey Falter is 1-1 with a no-decision while allowing eight runs and recording 16 strikeouts in those matchups with Falter’s most recent start coming against the Chicago Cubs in which he allowed six runs and struck out three in a loss.

Drew Rom is 0-2 in his two starts in his career in the majors and has allowed a total of eight runs and has recorded ten strikeouts in those matchups with Rom’s most recent start coming against the Philadelphia Phillies on the road in which he allowed two runs and struck out six batters in a loss.

Pittsburgh has been the slightly better team this season and has been the better team in the series, winning by an average margin of 1.6 runs per game over the last ten and 1 run per game over the last three matchups. As a result, I am taking the run line for the Pittsburgh Pirates at +1.5 on BookMaker for this matchup on Saturday night.