It's with great joy that I inform you it's once again Paul Skenes Day.
The indomitable right-hander will head to St. Louis to make his fifth start of the year and will be pitching under the lights for just the second time in his big-league career.
Waiting on the other side of this one will be a slumping Cardinals offense and an embattled veteran starter in Miles Mikolas, who's coming off one of his most effective outings of the year last week in Houston.
What's the best way to get down on this game for the parlay aficionados? Let's see if we can find an answer to that question by handing out a same-gamer below.
Here's my Pirates vs Cardinals MLB Parlay: Tuesday SGP Picks.
Remember to bet responsibly — this is a long shot for a reason.
Pirates vs Cardinals MLB Parlay: Tuesday SGP
- Pirates ML (-132)
- Paul Skenes Under 7.5 Strikeouts (-140)
- Jack Suwinski To Record A Hit (-150)
- Bryan Reynolds 2+ Total Bases (-105)
Parlay Odds: +719 (FanDuel)
Pittsburgh Pirates
ML -132 vs. Cardinals
The first part of the equation is for the Pirates to win this game.
We'll get more into the matchup issues for Mikolas below when we target two Pittsburgh bats, but the thing to know here is that the Pirates and Cardinals have had nearly identical offensive showings over the last seven days in terms of wRC+. That says a lot more about the way Pittsburgh has been able to hit the ball of late.
It has hit a solid .252 over this span with some issues in the power department, and while playing in the spacious Busch Stadium won't offer much hope of a turnaround, facing Mikolas will.
The Pirates have been victimized by the strikeout over the last week, punching out in over 27% of their plate appearances. Their 13.1% swinging strike rate over this span ranks inside the top five in baseball, just as their 12% swinging strike rate for the season does.
Mikolas isn't someone who misses very many bats with an incredibly low 16.5% whiff rate. He has been a contact-oriented pitcher for his entire career.
This should help the Pirates collect even more hits here — something they've done successfully of late — and they'll have Skenes to back them up against a Cardinals team that's been trending in the wrong direction at the plate over the last 7-10 days.
Paul Skenes
Under 7.5 Strikeouts (-140)
Skenes will do a bang-up job here. I have little doubt about it. But the time has come to sell high on his strikeout prowess — at least for one game.
His total is set at a very high 7.5, a number he's gone under in two of his five starts. The common denominator in those meetings has been a team on the other side that doesn't strike out much — or at least hasn't been striking out of late.
St. Louis has struck out in fewer than 18% of its plate appearances over the last week of play with an extremely low 9.6% swinging strike rate. For the season, that mark resides at just 10.5%, which puts it among the 10 best teams in baseball in that area.
With that, I'm of the belief that the Cardinals' strikeout rate should continue to improve as it has been over the last couple of weeks, which should mean that Skenes just misses this over.
Jack Suwinski
To Record A Hit (-150)
I really wanted to throw a dart on Henry Davis here given the matchup, but it's not certain that he'll draw the start behind the plate. I'll pivot to another undervalued hitter who should see some reprieve against a guy who isn't hunting strikeouts: Jack Suwinski.
He's looked a tad better since being recalled from Triple-A despite recording just three hits in five games. But last season, we saw the toolsy outfielder hit just .150 against power arms versus .265 against finesse pitchers like Mikolas.
This year, he's hit .278 against sinkers — a pitch he'll see a ton of from Mikolas — and for his career, he's 3-for-11 against the righty with a solid .349 expected batting average.
Bryan Reynolds
2+ Total Bases (-105)
To spice things up here, I'll add another hitter to the card — this time playing things a bit more square.
It's hard not to love Bryan Reynolds in this one with the way he's swung the bat. Reynolds is on a tear with a .353/.405/.529 slash line since the calendar flipped to June.
The cornerstone bat has racked up 12 hits in all, four of which have gone for extra bases, giving him two or more total bases in five of his eight games this month.
He, too, owns good numbers against Mikolas in his career with a .364 average and .485 slugging percentage in 37 plate appearances with a .332 xBA and .489 xSLG to boot.
