Griffin Wong gives you a preview, prediction and pick for tonight\u2019s game between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals.<\/p>\n
Not much is guaranteed in life, except for death, taxes, and Jacob deGrom being a good pitcher. By the standards he\u2019s set throughout his possible Hall of Fame career, this season hasn\u2019t been that great, but given his age and the multitude of injuries he\u2019s suffered throughout his career, he\u2019s certainly gotten the job done. He\u2019s been at least as impressive as his contemporary Max Scherzer was at the same age.<\/p>\n
Tonight, he\u2019ll make his 12th start of the season when his Texas Rangers open up a three-game road series against the St. Louis Cardinals. First pitch is scheduled for 7:45 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n
St. Louis will counter deGrom with Michael McGreevy, a pitcher with much less experience but better numbers than deGrom so far this season.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s break down this matchup with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook<\/a>.<\/p>\n Texas Rangers at St. Louis Cardinals prediction, preview<\/p>\n Texas finished exactly .500 last season after going 78-84 in 2024, so perhaps it\u2019s not a surprise that the Rangers are hovering around that mark again this season, posting a 28-31 record through the first 59 games of the season. Their offense has made some small strides last season, jumping from 26th in OPS in 2025 to 19th so far in 2026 (including the 13th-best mark in May), and they have a slightly positive run differential. Texas has especially gotten solid production from third baseman Josh Jung and utilityman Ezequiel Dur\u00e1n, and it decidedly seems to have won the Marcus Semien-for-Brandon Nimmo swap so far. Like last season, the Rangers have also had both a top-12 rotation and bullpen, as every pitcher with at least 15 innings this season besides Jack Leiter and the injured Cole Winn has a sub-4 ERA.<\/p>\n The Cardinals are over .500, but they have a worse run differential than Texas. This season, St. Louis sits in second in the ultra-competitive NL Central, hoping to break a three-season playoff drought, but it has slowed down slightly, playing just .500 baseball in May. Like the Rangers, the Cardinals have seen a modest offensive leap, climbing from 24th to 17th in OPS, and both rookie JJ Wetherholt and former top prospect Jordan Walker rank in the NL\u2019s top five in WAR. Their rotation has been slightly above-average and their bullpen slightly below-average so far, a reversal of fortunes relative to last season, but they\u2019ve still had some breakout stars, including McGreevy and setup man Gordon Graceffo.<\/p>\n DeGrom started off the season extremely strong, pitching to just a 2.01 ERA through the end of April, but he had a relatively rough May, giving up six earned runs twice and seeing his ERA balloon to a career-high 3.77 overall. There\u2019s still a lot of stuff he does well; he ranks in the league\u2019s top decile in chase rate, whiff rate, strikeout rate, and walk rate, which should make life difficult for a St. Louis offense that has employed one of the league\u2019s most aggressive plate approaches and had merely average bat-to-ball skills. The issue is that, as has become a trend later in his career, deGrom has been prone to hard hits, leading the American League in homers allowed and ranking in the bottom decile in barrel rate, hard-hit rate, ground ball rate, and average exit velocity, which allow the Cardinals to continue to mash while mitigating their biggest weakness (their ground ball rate). DeGrom\u2019s career ERA is also nearly a run higher on the road, and St. Louis has hit the ball slightly better at Busch Stadium.<\/p>\n Like deGrom, McGreevy had been trending well, with just a 2.10 ERA in his first nine starts of the season, but he\u2019s struggled through his last two outings, allowing a total of 17 hits and eight earned runs across nine innings of work. Despite his elite surface-level numbers, advanced stats don\u2019t paint such a positive picture of McGreevy; he has just a 10th-percentile expected ERA and a sixth-percentile expected batting average. Unlike deGrom, he hasn\u2019t done a great job generating chases, whiffs or strikeouts, which could be a boon for a Texas lineup that has whiffed at the third-highest rate this season. McGreevy has also given up a lot of hard hits, ranking in just the 13th percentile in barrel rate, though the Rangers haven\u2019t barreled as often as their high average exit velocity might suggest. Additionally, the splits aren\u2019t in McGreevy\u2019s favor; he has been slightly worse at home, while Texas has been significantly better both on the road and against right-handed pitchers.<\/p>\n Texas Rangers at St. Louis Cardinals pick, best bet<\/p>\n