The St. Louis Cardinals enjoyed a stress-free victory over the New York Mets on Tuesday.

The Cardinals hope to combine timely hitting, strong defense and stellar pitching again Wednesday night when they visit the Mets for the second game of their three-game series.

St. Louis, which will attempt to match a season high with its sixth straight victory. has won three of the four meetings with the Mets so far. Following consecutive tight wins over the Cincinnati Reds to complete a three-game sweep, the Cardinals scored six runs off Freddy Peralta and cruised to a 7-0 win in the series opener.

Alec Burleson, who is hitting .389 in a nine-game hitting streak, belted a two-run homer and drove in three runs, and Ivan Herrera and Nathan Church collected three hits apiece. Church’s effort followed a brief stint on the injured list due to a sprained left shoulder, and he also made a basket catch while going against the wind in center field on Marcus Semien’s drive in the fourth.

“Coming off an off day and going to the Mets and giving them a shutout, it’s a great start,” Church said. “So, trying to get another one tomorrow.”

Jordan Walker also is coming off an RBI double and is up to 48 RBIs this season, three shy of his career high set in 2023 when he batted .276 in 117 games as a rookie.

New York is 7-4 in its past 11 games but turned in a dud after rookie Carson Benge went 5-for-5 in Sunday’s 7-3 win at San Diego. The Mets were held to five hits and lead the majors with 21 games of being held to five hits or fewer this season.

“We never want to start that way, especially me,” Peralta said. “We won the last game in San Diego and (came) from there, expecting after an off-day to start on the right foot.”

Juan Soto had a single on Tuesday, however the slugger is just 3-for-27 this month.

After getting six stellar innings from Dustin May, the Cardinals will turn to fellow right-hander Andre Pallante (6-4, 3.96 ERA) to start on Wednesday. Pallante is attempting to surpass his win total from last season when he went 6-15 in 31 starts.

Pallante has allowed two earned runs or fewer in seven starts this season. He did so for the third time in four starts last Wednesday when he allowed one run on three hits in 5 2/3 innings during a 5-3 victory over the Texas Rangers.

Pallante’s only scoreless outing this season was against the Mets in St. Louis on March 31 when he allowed three hits. He is 1-2 with a 4.40 ERA in 11 career appearances (four starts) versus New York.

Christian Scott originally was slated to pitch Wednesday but will get the nod on Thursday afternoon. Instead, the Mets will use right-hander Austin Warren (1-2, 2.01) as an opener for the second time. Warren threw 19 pitches June 1 in Seattle ahead of Sean Manaea’s five innings.

Warren has allowed three hits over three scoreless innings in two relief appearances against the Cardinals.

Since Manaea pitched on Sunday, left-hander David Peterson is expected to serve as the bulk reliever. Peterson is 2-0 with a 1.88 ERA in six relief appearances after going 1-5 with a 7.56 ERA in seven starts.

Peterson last pitched May 31 when he threw 51 pitches in the final four innings of a 10-1 win over the Marlins.

–Field Level Media

The World Cup starts tomorrow and the Knicks go for a 3-1 lead tonight so there’s plenty of high profile sporting events on tap.

But hey, it’s wall to wall baseball today so let’s try to get back in the black with some MLB picks.

Season Record 33-30-1, -0.23Units

Phillies at Blue Jays

Jesus Luzardo Under 17.5 Outs Recorded (+140 BetMGM)

Bets are supposed to be about the price, right? Well, that’s exactly my angle here as I’m a fan of Luzardo as a pitcher. Especially when he’s on his game as he’s often an ace and you wonder why he can’t do that every game. Well the fact is he can’t as he’ll toss a gem one outing and then another and then get lit up in the next one. It has produced an uneven season. He has an 18.9% K-BB% which ranks 22nd among 66 qualified pitchers but he has an ERA of 4.56 which ranks 56th. He’s gone 73 IP in his 13 starts, so that’s about 5.5 per outing

The Jays are a modestly subpar offense with a 96 wRC+ on the season, but they’re on the pesky side. They have the 2nd lowest K% in the league at 19.3% so there’s a lot of balls in play. And that does not bode particularly well for Luzardo. He’s a heavy groundball pitcher and at -6 If Fielding Runs saved the Phillies have one of their worst team defenses in MLB.

The Jays absolutely torched Luzardo in their meeting last year with 9 hits and 8 runs in just 2.1 IP. I doubt we see a repeat of that, but they may give him a tough time again today so let’s try the under on his outs prop with a nice plus money cushion.

Brewers at Athletics*

Under 14.5 Runs (-102 BetMGM)

Again, the asterisk is to remember the game will take place in Vegas. 14.5 is of course a monstrous total, but it’s not unjustified.

The Brewers alone got there on Monday and the A’s just missed as the Crew won 15-14 in extra innings. It was a little tamer last night as the A’s took the game 7-5. It’s a leap of faith here, but it’s still tough to get to 15 runs combined, even in this heat and altitude.

Part of it is thanks to the pitching matchup, which on paper looks very weak. In the Brewers case there’s some truth behind it as there’s not a lot in Brandon Sproat’s data that suggests he’s much better than his 6.17 ERA. But he is actually. His 12.1% BB% is awful, but he also has a 24.1% K%. His 4.45 SIERA is bad, but not 6+ ERA bad.

A’s starter Jack Perkins on the other hand is considerably better than his 6.19 ERA as he’s got a 20.8% K-BB% with elite contact suppression skills. His xERA is just 3.30. Now most of that came as a reliever as he’s in the process of converting to the rotation. But the metrics look encouraging so far as he’s gone 8.1 IP in his two extended outings and he’s got 13 K’s vs. just 2 BB’s. Let’s close our eyes and take the under here.

The Toronto Blue Jays are getting healthier.

Max Scherzer will be the second Blue Jays’ starting pitcher in a row to return from the injured list when he starts the series finale Wednesday night against the visiting Philadelphia Phillies.

Dylan Cease returned from the IL Tuesday night to strike out 11 over six innings in the Blue Jays’ 3-2 walk-off victory. Cease had not pitched since May 24 because of a strained hamstring.

Each team has won once in the three-game series.

Reliever Adam Macko was optioned to Triple-A Buffalo to clear roster space for Cease. There will be other roster moves with Scherzer coming back and catcher Alejandro Kirk likely to return from a fractured thumb on Friday.

Scherzer (1-3, 9.64 ERA) is scheduled to make his first start since April 24 after dealing with forearm and ankle issues. He is one strikeout away from becoming the 11th pitcher in major league history to reach 3,500 for his career.

The right-hander is 18-5 with a 2.58 ERA in 31 career starts against the Phillies but has not faced them since 2023.

The Phillies are slated to start left-hander Jesus Luzardo (4-4, 4.56 ERA) on Wednesday. His one career start against the Blue Jays was last season, and it did not go well. He was saddled with the loss after allowing eight runs on nine hits in 2 1/3 innings.

It is unclear how Toronto’s lineup will look against Luzardo.

In an attempt to get Vladimir Guerrero Jr. out of his rut, for instance, Blue Jays manager John Schneider had him bat leadoff for the second time in his career on Tuesday. He was 1-for-4 with an infield hit and is hitting .167 (5-for-30) with one RBI in June.

“We’re just trying to shake things up for him a little bit, and we’ll see how it goes,” Schneider said. “I’ve been talking to him about it for a while. I feel like I’ve been talking about him in the two-hole for five years. We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago and he said, ‘I’ll hit wherever.’ It was probably a three-minute conversation (Monday) night. It’s no secret. We go as Vlad goes. No one feels that more than him.”

“I’m sure (Schneider) is trying to get something going, give Schneider a different feel for Vlad,” said Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly, who was Toronto’s bench coach the previous three seasons. “I’m hoping it doesn’t really work — for a few days.”

Another struggling Blue Jays hitter, George Springer, was given Tuesday off, although he did get ready to pinch hit late in the game. He was not needed, however.

Tuesday was a tough game for the closers. Toronto’s Louis Varland allowed only his second earned run of the season in the top of the ninth inning on a walk and Bryson Stott’s double that gave the Phillies a 2-1 lead.

Philadelphia’s Jhoan Duran entered the bottom of the ninth having converted all 16 save attempts this season. But two hits and a wild pitch tied the game, and Brandon Valenzuela singled for his first career walk-off hit.

“You know it’s going to happen at some point,” Mattingly said.

Cease and Phillies starter Zack Wheeler each allowed one run in six innings.

“Cease was really good; I thought Zack was good,” Mattingly said. “Obviously, it was one of those games that’s just not going to be a bunch of runs going up.”

–Field Level Media