#954 ASA PLAY ON 8* St Louis Cardinals -1.5 on the Run Line (-120) over Pittsburgh Pirates, Thursday at 7:45 PM ET - Take action here as we grab the much better team at home and ready for a home blowout win regardless of the starters. The Pirates are expected to start Vince Velasquez. He struggled to find the plate in spring training and he has more walks than strikeouts so far this season. This will be his 3rd start of the young season and he rolled his left ankle so he is not quite 100% and this will not help him today either. That said, Cardinals bats should roll here and their expected starter is Jared Montgomery. While Velasquez has a 9.82 ERA so far this season, Montgomery has a 2.25 ERA in his first two starts and is coming off a dominating effort over the Brewers in his most recent start. He is 16-6 in night starts since the start of the 2021 season and Pittsburgh's 5 losses this season have all been by at least 2 runs and 4 of the 5 by at least 4 runs. In fact, the average margin of defeat in Pittsburgh losses has been 5 runs. The Pirates were shutout yesterday and have been held to 2 or less runs scored in 3 of last 4 games. The Cardinals have played a tough schedule but are off B2B wins and are starting to turn the corner after facing tough competition to begin their season. All 5 Cardinals wins this season have been by at least a 3 run margin. We think we're getting some nice value laying -1.5 in this one and only having to lay a small price in the -120 range with the Cardinals. Lay it!