Free Pick | MLB | Wednesday | July 19

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#902 St. Louis Cardinals (Hudson) -105 over Miami Marlins (Alcantara) 1:15 PM CT

It has been a miserable season for the Cardinals but with four straight wins St. Louis is only 10 games out of the NL Central lead with the neither the Reds nor Brewers looking overly formidable as a threat to run away with the division. St. Louis is likely to be involved in moving players in the next two weeks, but this is a squad that is only -23 in run differential despite being 11 games below .500. That is only eight runs worse than Miami with the Marlins nine games above .500 and a serious wild card threat. Sandy Alcantara has turned in dramatically worse road numbers throughout his career and he has a 4.80 ERA on the road this season in what has been a major decline of results since his 2022 Cy Young campaign. The Marlins are just 7-12 in his starts this season including 0-3 in July. Dakota Hudson has been working his way back from injury and so far in 10 innings he has a 1.80 ERA. He just had his longest outing of the season on Saturday and should be in line to throw a few innings for the Cardinals today. Hudson hasn’t been able to recapture his great 2019 season in recent years but was still a decent starting option for St. Louis last season and the Cardinals have shown improvement in their bullpen numbers since the break. The Cardinals have scored at least five runs in every game since the All-Star break while posting three or more runs in 13 of 15 games in a 9-6 run in July. The Marlins are just 5-10 in the past 15 games with the offense topping five runs once in the past nine games while suffering another painful close loss last night with Nolan Arenado walking it off with a 10th-inning home run. Miami is still 21-8 in one-run games this season, but the close-game fortune may be finally adjusting with the recent slide and the bullpen has been taxed with just 14 combined innings from starters over the past four days.