Cardinals vs. Angels: Unexpected Standouts and Predictions

All right, Tom, let's get to some other games and preview some other games. And let's take a look at the Cardinals and Angels tonight. You and I both felt the same way about the Cardinals at the beginning of the season and then in April and in May and in June and July, they just have not fallen down. But the oddsmakers just keep pounding them. The Angels are favored tonight over the St. Louis Cardinals. I don't know how they've gotten it done. I guess if I just took the stats of Jordan Walker and I threw them at you, Tom, and you didn't know anything. And then I said they call up this kid, J.J. Weatherhold, and I threw those at you, too. You'd be like, wow, maybe St. Louis isn't as bad as we thought. But they've still been better than that. Do you have a lean tonight on this game between the Angels and Cardinals? Not just a lean to pick up. I'm on the Cardinals money line, and this is not so much a bet on the Cardinals as really just a bet against the Angels. I don't think the Angels are good. I think again, as we've discussed on many shows, as we said all year, I didn't think the Cardinals were going to be this good. And they surprised me. They're coming off the top series versus the Diamondbacks. Frankly, I'll just take them in this bounce back spot at essentially even money. I don't think too highly of Kyle Leahy. I think he's overperforming a lot of his stats. Jose Soriano, if he still has some type of name brand recognition, that's giving us a decent line on the Cardinals. I'll take it because Soriano has come crashing back down to earth after what was granted a very electric start to the season, a very impressive start. He's come crashing back down to earth. Their bullpen is horrendous for the Angels, and I'll take Weatherholt and Burleson and Jordan Walker at the top of the lineup. They get some offense going tonight against the Angels, giving them up on the money line, minus 108. All right, fair enough. You're right. Soriano has not pitched the same way in June and July that he did in April and May, but just credit to Soriano just for even pitching that well, I would say in April and May. Maybe some team can take a look at him and maybe the Angels make a trade, but got no interest in particularly for me in this game tonight. All right, the one game that we hit on earlier in the show, let's dive back into it a little bit because we didn't go extensively in it, if anybody's been with us for the full hour here. That would be the Nationals and Colorado Rockies, Tom. Seems like you have some vested interest in this one, watching the weather here, watching the total here in this one as well. Boy, the Rockies yesterday, was it Feltner that pitched yesterday and he gave up immediately like seven home runs or something like this? Hey, you know, Tom, the thing for me is kind of funny is you look at the total 11 and a half and look, I've been around baseball for a really long time. The biggest mystery to me is how the Rockies, again, no disrespect to the people in Denver, how do they get 25, 30,000 a night to go and watch that and generally speaking, most of the years, not all. Remember, they had a World Series season. They had a great postseason run at one point, but how do they sit through this year after and not just like 5,000 people, like 25, 30,000 people still show up and they bring their families and they love watching Rockies game. I mean, this has got to be the best sports town in America. I would say as for the fans of why they go, the whole, I don't want to say the whole area because that's maybe that's putting in a negative light, but it is entertainment and it's affordable, right? You could get you get a whole series of tickets for four tickets for under 50 or 75 bucks, which you probably can't find in too many places. That's one part of it. I do a little bit of a vested interest in this for various reasons. One, really happy that I just got Harry Ford on an NFB see team him and Curtis meet. So I'm expecting some big offense are really hoping for some big offense out of them. You just mentioned that Max Meyer is on the IL lost him on this NFB see team. So I need some players to step up and seeing some offense for the Nats in this amazing hitting environment would really help me. So I've invested interest again. I'm looking towards an in-game over as George Kurtz alluded to if I can get that at ten and a half or nine and a half. We start off the first two innings a little bit slow. That's where I'm going to be looking. Let's go over to Washington here for a minute. Tom surprisingly, I think for most including me best offense and Major League Baseball this season worst bullpen in Major League Baseball this season starting pitching has been okay. They have one incredible pitcher Foster Griffin who they signed great job by the front office Tom. They have a choice here. I think the choice is pretty easy. You got to trade Foster Griffin next week of the week after it gets something back here. But as even if the Nationals were to somehow sneak in any postseason picture, we know they're not going far are the Nationals like this far ahead of schedule to you. Are they having a lucky season? You look at their run differential. You're like should they really be a 500 team, but they've had their moments where they played well and one through four one through five of that lineup Garcia and would and some of the others. I mean they mash you mentioned meat and some others to a very surprising offensive line of Abrams to I don't want to miss him. Right? Yeah, I would say they were ahead of schedule and I honestly think the best course is you talked about Foster Griffin. I think a Cavalli is super solid for them. But the name has come up for a lot of teams in terms of shape trade target is Luis Garcia. So if you can trade those two pieces, I think it's about retooling and preparing for next year. And that really means getting some bullpen out in any capacity and whether they are prospects whether it's a and maybe it's a picture that doesn't look good on the surface, but has some great underlying metrics from very remember their GM is what 33 34 very very young front office that they turn things over to in the offseason. So maybe there's something analytically that they'd like in some under the radar reliever. And if you could trade away a Luis Garcia Foster Griffin to bring in relief health prospects or other pictures, they should be preparing for next season. They're not going to make it this year. It's been a fun season, but they need to start improving the foundation before they start to actually compete and a bullpen is a vital part.