STLCards' Covering The Bases - Friday, April 30th
Happy Friday, Grinders! Our good friend Mr. Cheese needed today off, likely due to over-celebrating the pinch hit home run by Matt Carpenter yesterday afternoon. Things like that simply don’t happen these days, so I don’t blame him for celebrating the occasion. In all seriousness, I hope he is able to enjoy a relaxing, long weekend, and I’ll do my best to fill his shoes for this evening’s slate.
We have a massive 14 game main slate this evening, with every team in action and only one game (STL/PIT) starting prior to 7:00 PM Eastern. That leaves us with a ton to break down, and I will parse things out into groups to help us decipher the various tiers of pitching and offense.
Let’s get to it!
Friday Slate Cliff Notes
Here’s a summary of what lies below, in case you do not wish to read the entire analysis today.
Top Pitchers – We have three aces on the mound tonight, and I am tagging Gerrit Cole as my core option. You certainly can’t go wrong with Bieber, either, but the matchup against the feeble Tigers’ offense gives Cole the edge tonight. Andrew Heaney is my preferred value given that his stuff has looked sharp this year, he is healthy again, and he is facing the Mariners.