San Francisco Giants vs. St. Louis Cardinals

The San Francisco Giants are having one of their better seasons since their visit to the 2002 World Series, but have the misfortune of having both the majors best team and the majors hottest team residing in their division with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies.

The hard-charging Rockies have come within a half-game of the San Francisco Giants (40-34) for second place in the NL West. San Francisco is also a game and a half back in the Wild Card standings in the National League.

The team they are chasing are the St. Louis Cardinals (41-36). Currently the Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers are tied for first in the NL Central, and the team that falls to second will lead the wild-card chase, unless the Giants are able to sweep the Cardinals.

After each team had a listless weekend series, St. Louis dropping two of three games at home to the Minnesota Twins and San Francisco dropped two of three to the Brewers.

St. Louis was held to just seven runs over the three weekend games which was one of the reasons for bringing Mark DeRosa back to the National League over the weekend.

DeRosa provided a spark for the back-to-back NL Central champion Chicago Cubs in 2007-2008 before signing a free agent deal with the Cleveland Indians in the offseason. The Indians have probably been the biggest disappointment in baseball this year and have started cutting their losses by trading DeRosa back to the NL Central, this time with the former rival St. Louis Cardinals.

DeRosa played in the Saturday and Sunday games but was hitless in his attempt to help the Cardinals gain some offensive punch and take some pressure off MVP candidate Albert Pujols.

DeRosa, Pujols and the rest of the St. Louis Cardinals could be in for another tough game when they face reining NL Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum (7-2, 2.57) in the opening game of the four-game series in St. Louis. Lincecum is on an great streak in which he has started seven consecutive quality starts, including striking out 12 and allowing a run on seven hits in a complete game 4-1 win over the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday. It was Lincecum’s fourth career complete game and second in his last three games.

Having the unenviable task of going up against Lincecum is Brad Thompson (2-3, 4.50) for the Cardinals, coming off a tough loss in which he allowed five runs in five innings of an 11-0 loss to the New York Mets on Wednesday.

The Giants took two of three in the series played in San Francisco from May 29-31.

Click here for more Baseball Betting Lines and Online Sports Betting Lines.

---

---

Comments