Cardinals vs. Marlins Bets: How to approach player props from St. Louis-Miami on April 4

St. Louis isn’t exactly off to a strong start, but Miami probably wouldn’t mind a 3-4 record at this stage. The Marlins are one of two winless teams in baseball, with the Mets being the other. However, New York is just 0-4 while Miami is 0-7.

The Cardinals kick off their home opener with Lance Lynn on the bump. He opened his 2024 campaign with four scoreless innings, striking out five Dodgers before a rain delay cut his start short. Opposite of him will be Ryan Weathers, who also struck out five over four innings in his first 2024 outing. However, the Miami left-hander also gave up three runs to the Pirates in that game.

Here’s a look at their 2023 individual home-road splits from their respective player pages in the DraftKings Sportsbook Stats Hub:

LANCE LYNN

RYAN WEATHERS

I was drawn to the home-road numbers because this is a significant occasion for Lynn. The 2011 World Series winner is back where his MLB career began, and he’s got a chance to put on a show vs. Miami. Striking out 97 while facing 399 batters puts Lynn’s home 2023 strikeout rate at north of 24%. Couple that with the fact he was able to log five K’s over just four frames in his first start of the season, and my pitcher prop for this game is Lance Lynn over 5.5 strikeouts (+100).

Now, here’s a look at how some of this game’s hitter have performed over their last five contests against their hits line for Thursday’s matchup via the Consistency Sheets in the DraftKings Sportsbook Stats Hub:

Both righties and lefties had their way with Weathers last season, with each group combining for an OPS north of .900 against the left-hander. But this is a particularly favorable matchup for St. Louis’ 2-3 punch of righty bats.

Paul Goldschmidt hit .295 with an .826 OPS against lefties last season while Willson Contreras hit .296 with a .906 OPS. There are a couple of ways to attack Weathers with them.

Contreras had the superior slugging percentage between the two. Normally, I’d go the route of a total bases prop, but the value isn’t there with his line set a 0.5. That being the case, the alternate option is sprinkling him to go deep (+425) for the third time this season. Goldschmidt is an option for the total bases angle (over 1.5 at +130), but he had the superior OBP against these lefties between him and Contreras. A walk or two could be in store for him, with the powerful Contreras hitting right behind him. As such, I like Goldschmidt over 1.5 hits+runs+RBI (-121). Then there’s the simple option of parlaying Contreras and Goldschmidt to each get one hit at +125.

If you’re looking to add a Marlins hitter to that parlay, both Luis Arraez and Tim Anderson have hit over .300 against Lynn throughout their career across 17-plus plate appearances. As of writing, adding Arraez to get a hit to our Goldschmidt-Contreras parlay would bring the odds to +175. Instead adding Anderson would make it +225. Going with all four brings the odds to +295.

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All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and all odds subject to change.

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All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests.

The contents contained in this article do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment.