St. Louis Cardinals vs Houston Astros Prediction: Both teams play at the same level

Wednesday's Major League Baseball action at Busch Stadium features a matchup between the Houston Astros and the St. Louis Cardinals. The Astros just finished a series against the Dodgers over the weekend, in which they only managed to take one of three games. As for St. Louis, they faced up against the Chicago Cubs twice over the course of the weekend in London, and they ended up splitting the series.

The Chicago Cubs defeated the St. Louis Cardinals by a score of 9-1 on Saturday, but they came back with a 7-5 victory on Sunday to split their series in London. During the victory, Matthew Liberatore began things off by pitching 2.1 scoreless innings, allowing four hits and two walks. The St. Louis Cardinals have a record of 2-6 in their past eight games following a day off, but they have a record of 5-2 in their last seven games overall. In their last 26 games played in game one of a series, St. Louis has a record of 6-20.

On Friday, the Houston Astros were defeated by the Dodgers 3-2, and then again on Saturday, they were defeated by the Dodgers 8-7. However, the Astros were able to avoid being swept by winning the last game 6-5. On Sunday, the starting pitcher for Houston, Hunter Brown, worked for six innings, allowing one earned run on three hits while walking two batters. On Wednesday, Framber Valdez will take up the role of the starting pitcher. This year, Valdez has made 15 starts and has a record of 7-5 with a 2.27 earned run average, 104 strikeouts, and 99.0 innings pitched. In 113 career games (91 starts), Valdez has compiled a record of 48-28 while posting a 3.20 earned run average.

In this matchup, the Astros are most likely going to be my pick. In his most recent set of races, Valdez has had a couple of really strong starts under his belt. During those 15.0 innings, he has only allowed three earned runs on nine hits and one walk, for a total of three runs allowed. The weekend series that Houston played against Los Angeles wasn't the best it might have been, but the good news is that they've been scoring well recently. The Astros have won four of their past five games by scoring four or more runs, so they should be able to record a respectable number here as well.