Pittsburgh has the better record, the hotter recent form and home-field advantage, but the interesting question is whether those edges are strong enough to justify a -143 moneyline against St. Louis. The Pirates have won five straight, including Tuesday’s 2-0 opener, yet our hitting projections show only a modest gap between the clubs.
Pittsburgh’s momentum comes with a pitching reset
The Pirates improved to 80-77 with Tuesday’s win and moved closer to their first winning season since 2018. According to the AP’s recap, Jared Jones held the Cardinals to one hit over seven innings while striking out nine. Pittsburgh has won six of its last 10 games, while St. Louis is 4-6 over the same span.
That dominant performance matters as recent context, but Wednesday brings a different pitching setup. Lake Bachar is confirmed to start for Pittsburgh, while Matthew Liberatore is listed for St. Louis. Jones’ seven-inning gem let the Pirates play the opener from ahead without asking much of their bullpen or lineup; Pittsburgh can’t simply assume the same formula will carry over with a different starter.
The confirmed Pirates order does offer some continuity. Konnor Griffin, who had two hits Tuesday, leads off ahead of Rafael Flores Jr., Bryan Reynolds and Brandon Lowe. Pittsburgh’s clearest route is to turn that top-of-the-order traffic into an early advantage and avoid making Bachar work without support.
The projected gap is real, but relatively small
Our team projections give Pittsburgh a modest edge at the plate rather than a runaway advantage. We project roughly eight hits for each club, with the Pirates slightly higher at 8.4 to 7.6. Pittsburgh also holds a projected total-base advantage of about 13 to 12 and a small home-run edge.
That leaves St. Louis with a plausible path to making the moneyline uncomfortable. The Cardinals don’t need to erase a large projected gap; they need more from a lineup that produced only one hit in the opener. Ivan Herrera, Alec Burleson and Jordan Walker form the middle of the listed order, and getting runners aboard for that group would put more pressure on Pittsburgh’s new pitching arrangement.
How the market frames the matchup
The latest moneyline makes Pittsburgh a -143 favorite, with St. Louis at +118. That’s a meaningful price for a home team on a five-game winning streak, but our one-star side rating points to limited conviction at the current number.
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The total is 7.5, with the under priced at -122 and the over at +101. Our three-star total rating makes the scoring environment more notable than the side in the current ratings. Recent results don’t offer a simple trend: five of Pittsburgh’s last 10 finished over, four stayed under and one pushed, while six of St. Louis’ last 10 went over. The change from Jones to Bachar is another reason not to treat Tuesday’s 2-0 score as a ready-made template.
Final assessment
Pittsburgh owns the stronger overall case through its five-game winning streak, 80-77 record and slight advantage in our projected hitting output. The counterweight is that the Pirates are being asked to validate a favorite’s price with a different starter, while the projected gap between the lineups is fairly narrow. The biggest factor is whether Bachar and the Pittsburgh bullpen can preserve enough of the run-prevention edge Jones established in the opener.
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