Don’t look now, but the Rockies are red-hot coming into today’s matchup with the Cardinals. Well, red-hot in context of its season, as Colorado has won three of its five games coming out of the All-Star break. Heck, it has a chance to win two straight series with a victory this afternoon. That’s a big deal for a squad with 25 total wins in the final stretch of July.
Meanwhile, this is a sneaky big contest for St. Louis. The Cardinals are currently 3.5 games back of the final Wild Card spot in the National League and two consecutive losses to the lowly Rockies wouldn’t exactly inspire a ton of confidence. In a way, Colorado could make St. Louis a seller with a big showing on Wednesday.
Let’s preview the rest of this afternoon matchup with the help of some odds and lines on the DraftKings Sportsbook.
Cardinals vs. Rockies prediction, preview
This is a pretty poor time for Andre Pallante to be pitching at Coors Field. I mean, it’s always a poor time to be pitching in the altitude, but especially so for a man who has surrendered 17 hits and 12 earned runs across his past two starts. For the season as a whole, Pallante sports an inflated 4.71 ERA over 19 outings and 105.0 innings. Pallante also possesses just a fifth percentile strikeout rate (14.9%) — generally a death sentence in Colorado — though he does offset some of that contact with a 98th percentile ground ball rate (62.2%). He’ll want to continue to suppress launch angle at an elite level on Wednesday, or face the wrath of Coors.
If there’s a positive for the Cardinals, it’s that Tanner Gordon isn’t exactly Nolan Ryan, either. The right-hander has made just three starts at the MLB level this season and he’s managed a putrid 14.1% strikeout rate. For his career, Gordon has made 11 starts with the Rockies, posting a 7.19 ERA and surrendering 2.10 opponent home runs per nine. Shockingly, two thirds of those long balls have come away from Colorado, but in any case, Gordon is not the archetype of pitcher that I trust taking the mound in Denver. Not even close.
It’s also worth noting that St. Louis has been at its best offensively when facing an RHP in 2025. To wit, the Cardinals are slashing .260/.327/.410 with a 108 wRC+ within the split. In comparison, the squad owns just a .121 ISO and a 90 wRC+ against southpaws. Some of this has to do with losing Ivan Herrera for over a month due to injury, but as things stand, this is an ideal matchup for all of St. Louis’ bats.
Cardinals vs. Rockies pick, best bet
Best Bet: Willson Contreras 3+ Total Bases (+140)
Contreras owns an 87th percentile expected wOBA (.377). Gordon has allowed opposing RHBs to slash .380/.412/.685 throughout his career.
