Huge 100% Exclusive Sportsbook Bonus For Cappersinfo Visitors
Exclusive 100% Signup Bonus (up to $2500) at BetGuardian Sportsbook!!
(Must Use This Link & Code “CAPPERSINFO” – New Customers Only)
And it all comes down to this… In what might amount to be one of the best World Series ever played, the Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals come down to just one more game for all of the marbles. There are no baseball picks like our World Series Game 7 predictions, so be sure not to miss out here at Cappers Info!
Year To Date Record: 20-16 +$495
2011 Series Picks: 2-4, -$445
MLB Predictions: Texas Rangers @ St. Louis Cardinals Game 7
Date: Friday, October 28th, 8:05 ET
Location: Busch Stadium, St. Louis, MO
MLB Playoffs Odds: St. Louis -145, Over/Under 8 (over -105)
MLB Playoffs TV Schedule: FOX
Common logic would tell you to go with the Cardinals in this game, and that’s inevitably the way that the mass majority of the general public is going to go. We’ll start with some logistics…
It’s fairly clear that Chris Carpenter is the better of the two pitchers on the mound in this game. The righty has thrown a pair of complete game shutouts, both of which came on short rest since the final day of the regular season, and though he has only led the team to a 20-19 mark in his 39 starts this year, Carpenter has been as good as the MVP for this team during the whole postseason push. Meanwhile, Matt Harrison has only pitched in three games in the playoffs, and in the most recent one, he was the scapegoat that got destroyed in the 16 run game in Game 3, aka the Albert Pujols show. There’s also home field advantage to contend with, as ridiculous as it is. This game should clearly be played in Arlington, but thanks to the whole “This One Counts” garbage, a team that has won 106 games, 58 of which came at home this year, has to go on the road against a team that just won its 100th game last night.
And that brings us to the luck of the Cardinals. This isn’t even a game that should rightfully be played at Busch Stadium. Then again, this wasn’t a team that should have been in the playoffs without the Atlanta Braves blowing an 8.5 game lead in September on the NL Wild Card… Nor was it a team that really should have still been alive when it sent Carpenter out on short rest of the second time in the series and for the third straight start in Game 5 on the road, at the best team in baseball, with their ace on the mound in Roy Halladay in a 1-0 game. Nor should the Cardinals have survived against the Milwaukee Brewers, who had home field advantage in the NLCS twice with the best home record in the game.
But surely… SURELY, the Cards were finished after Manager Tony La Russa and his whole bullpen gaffe in Game 5 in Arlington. Surely… right? Surely, with this team down 7-4 in the eighth inning and 7-5 with two outs and two strikes in the ninth inning, it was over! After all, no team had ever rallied from their final strike in the close out game of a World Series to force another game, and only two teams in the history of the game have ever come back from being down to their final out of the World Series to force another game. Of course, one of those was the biggest cursed team in the game, as the Boston Red Sox blew it against the New York Mets thanks to Bill Buckner…
But to come back from not just one foot in the grave and one on a banana peel, but essentially both already in the grave with just a morsel of a fingertip still clenching to the dirt above that grave, and to do it twice in consecutive innings… wow. Just wow. The power over the Cardinals just has to be greater than the power, even over the Red Sox for all those years with Buckner.
But call us contrarians. Call us numbers people. Call us whatever you want. We rolled with Texas for this series, and we are doing so again in Game 5.
Forget about the fact that Mike Napoli had to have an x-ray to determine if he had a broken hand on Thursday. Forget about the hamstring injury to Nelson Cruz, who now has the most home runs in a single postseason in league history. Forget about Carpenter. Forget about the karma.
In the end, the question that we have to ask ourselves is whether the Texas Rangers are winning this game often enough to be worthy of taking them at +135. Lady Luck aside, they’re the better team in this series, and they are probably in better shape in terms of their bullpen, and in the end, they will end up claiming their first World Series title after all. Remember how we talked about the Red Sox blowing it to the Mets in the World Series on their final out? The other team that lost a close out game in the World Series with just one more out to get ended up winning that series. It was the Philadelphia A’s… in 1911… 100 years later, history will finally repeat itself.
St. Louis Cardinals @ Texas Rangers Game 7 Predictions: Texas Rangers +135
