The St. Louis Cardinals open the season with a four-game series with the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday afternoon. St. Louis finished last season at 71-91 and in the basement of the NL Central. The Dodgers have already played this season, splitting two games with the Padres in Korea. St. Louis added starters Sonny Gray, Lance Lynn, and Kyle Gibson to their rotation. Gray is already on the IL with a hamstring injury. Miles Mikolas gets the start for the Cardinals in this one. He went 9-13 with a 4.78 ERA, and a 1.316 WHIP in 39 starts last season. He led the league in hits and earned runs allowed. During spring training, he was 2-0 with a 4.78 ERA and a 1.19 WHIP.  The Dodgers showed the bats are just fine as they put up 11 runs in a 15-11 loss to close out the Korea series. Tyler Glasnow opened the season for LA, going 5 innings and allowing two runs on two hits with four walks and three strikeouts. During spring, he was 1-0 with a 0.90 ERA, a 0.70 WHIP, three walks, and 14 strikeouts over 10 innings of work. Mikolas is a pitch-to-contact pitcher and the Dodgers lineup can make contact. Glasnow needs to have better control than he had in the first game. The Dodgers are at home and this lineup is loaded. Los Angeles has already played two regular season games which has to be an advantage. I like the Dodgers to pile on the runs off Mikolas early. Lay the 1.5 runs for value.

Play on the LA Dodgers minus 1.5 runs. This is a 3% play!