MLB Free Premium Play 10/17: San Francisco Giants @ St Louis Cardinals

San Francisco  at St. Louis

MLB - 911 San Francisco Giants @ 912 St Louis Cardinals (Starting Pitchers: M. Cain vs K. Lohse) When I started studying this game, I was thinking in taking the Under. In the Game 1 of this series, we had a relatively high scoring game, as Bumgarner has been struggling and Lynn was on a terrible spot. Then, on Game 2, we took San Francisco, as we knew Vogelsong has once again in good form and Carpenter wasn't as good as most people thought he was. For today, in Game 3, the Cardinals will start Kyle Lohse, while San Francisco will start their ace Matt Cain. And so, the Under was looking good to me. However, I changed my mind when I read an article on fangraphs that talks about the struggles that Cain has been having on his best pitch, the slider. Cain is coming from his best regular season of his career, where he posted a career low in ERA and WHIP with 2.79 and 1.04 respectively. His 22% strikeout rate was also the highest of his career, while his 5.8% walk rate was the lowest of his career. But suddenly he struggled twice against the Reds in the postseason. And while fangraphs shows that he looked good on speed pitches, he struggled on the slides. In the first game against the Reds, he allowed five hits, three earned runs, walked a better, hit a batter, struck out four and allowed two home runs in just five innings. The reason for that was in the fact that in the first five sliders he threw were balls and it was apparent he didn’t have a very good feel for it from the outset. Overall, he threw sixteen sliders on the day, 50% of them for strikes, but zero of them produced a swing and a miss. On the season, Cain’s slider had produced almost a 13% whiff rate. On Game 2 against the Reds, he allowed six hits, three earned runs, walked two, hit a batter and struck out five in 5.2 innings. He threw fully 35% sliders, but he generated about a foot less vertical movement than he had on the season. The biggest problem for Cain is that he struggled against a team that is generally a perfect matchup for him. Cain was just allowed this season .184 BA, .333 SLG and 3.32 FIP against RH batters and the Reds had just 2 LH batters with the rest of lineup being Right Handed. Cincinnati was also one of the worst teams in the league in hitting sliders, which is Cain's best pitch. After these two outings, Cain has a 5.06 ERA, 6.47 FIP and 4.88 xFIP on this postseason and he will face the Cardinals tonight, a team that brings him a much tougher matchup. The Cardinals' offense is better than Cincinnati's, especially in clutch moments and they also hit better sliders than the Reds. They've faced Cain twice this season and he struggled in both outings, with 7.94 ERA/3.98 FIP/3.24 xFIP and 6.00 ERA/4.26 FIP/4.79 xFIP. Cain is a flyball pitcher and today's weather shows the wind blowing out to center field at 10-15 mph, something that won't help him in here. Therefore, I really expect Cain to struggle today. The Cardinals will be starting Lohse and in two outings he has already had on this postseason, he was dominant in both with a 2.13 ERA, 3.88 FIP and 3.69 xFIP. He didn't face San Francisco in the regular season and he has just 73 AB's against the Giants' starting lineup, with Pence being the only batter that had previous success against Lohse with 13-44 AB. Just like Cain, Lohse's best pitch is the slider and San Francisco was one of the worst teams in hitting sliders. I believe Lohse will dominate the Giants today, while Cain will struggle, therefore together with the homecourt edge, I expect a comfortable win for St Louis today and so, I'll be taking them in here. Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 912 St Louis Cardinals ML (w/ K. Lohse) @ -119 / 1.84 on 5Dimes