Blue Jays vs. Cardinals same-game parlay: Bet Toronto’s offence to come through in close game

The Toronto Blue Jays and St. Louis Cardinals wrap up their season-opening series on Sunday afternoon at Busch Stadium.

The pregame narrative: Toronto’s flop on offence in yesterday’s game hasn’t scared us off of its run total. But we still like St. Louis to at least hang in, and for Paul Goldschmidt to keep raking at the dish.

Here’s our Blue Jays vs. Cardinals same-game parlay for the series finale on April 2.

MLB odds as of 9:20 a.m. ET on 04/02/23.

Blue Jays vs. Cardinals same-game parlay picks

Parlay: Cardinals +1.5 + Blue Jays over 3.5 runs + Goldschmidt over 0.5 hits (+400)

Cardinals +1.5 (-210): The two prior games in this series were on opposite ends of the scoring spectrum, but they were both tightly contested. We think another close one could be coming for Game 3, so we’re grabbing the host squad on the run line.

St. Louis covered this number in Thursday’s 10-9 loss and in Saturday’s 4-1 win. The Cardinals also finished fifth ATS as a home team last season (45-38), with an even more impressive 16-9 ATS mark as home underdogs.

The Blue Jays were just 24-33 ATS in 2022 as road favourites.

St. Louis starter Jordan Montgomery has covered this number in all four of his starts against Toronto dating back to 2021 (although he pitched for the Yankees in each of those outings).

Other parlay legs

Blue Jays over 3.5 runs (-134): Offence wasn’t hard to come by on Thursday in Toronto’s 10-run fireworks show. Saturday, of course, was a different story.

We expect a bounce-back effort from the Blue Jays after a three-hit, 10-walk showing that yielded a single run. The 0-for-11 production with runners in scoring position really stands out.

In the first inning, they loaded the bases. In the second and third innings, they put a pair of runners on with none out. All they got was a goose egg.

It’s not worth rehashing the whole game, but it was clear the Blue Jays squandered an improbable volume of chances. For a team that averaged 4.8 runs last year and cleared this line 60.5% of the time, they should be in good shape to cash.

This line implies that St. Louis has a decent scoring day, too. The Cardinals have scored 13 runs already in this series on 25 hits, so they appear to be in fine form.

Goldschmidt over 0.5 hits (-245): If an NL MVP hangover is coming, just know it hasn’t kicked in yet.

Goldschmidt is 4-for-8 in this series, collecting a pair of hits in both games. He’s already tagged a trio of balls with an exit velocity of 105 mph or higher, per Baseball Savant.

Toronto starter Chris Bassitt, a former Met, has faced Goldschmidt in seven previous at-bats. St Louis’ star first baseman is 3-for-7 with a double and a home run.