St. Louis Cardinals @ Chicago Cubs - July 4, 2025

As a fan of the numbers behind the game, I’m excited to delve into this matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Friday. Divisional bragging rights are on the line, and both teams have compelling narratives leading into this clash.

The Cardinals come into this game with a record of 47-41, but they’re currently in a bit of a tailspin, having lost three straight games. Their starting pitcher for this contest is Miles Mikolas, who has had a somewhat rocky season so far with a 4-5 record and an ERA of 3.995. While his strikeouts per nine innings sit at 7.253, which isn’t terrible, he’s struggled to keep runs off the board consistently.

On the other side of the diamond, we have Colin Rea taking the mound for the Cubs. With a record of 5-3 and an impressive ERA of 3.865, Rea has been solid this season and will look to extend Chicago’s current three-game winning streak. His ability to limit damage is evident in his stats as well; he averages about 7.458 strikeouts per nine innings—a slight edge over Mikolas.

When it comes to offensive output, there’s no denying that Chicago holds an advantage here as well. The Cubs average approximately 5.5 runs per game compared to St. Louis’s 4.6 runs per game—this discrepancy can be pivotal in determining outcomes in close contests like these. Additionally, Chicago boasts nearly nine hits per game (8.964) along with strong RBIs (5.361), while St. Louis lags slightly behind with around 8.6 hits and only about 4.4 RBIs per game.

From a betting perspective, oddsmakers opened up with Chicago as -154 moneyline favorites against St. Louis—an indicator that they expect them to perform well given their recent form and home-field advantage at Wrigley Field.

Looking deeper into trends: The total for this matchup opened at 10.5 runs; however, considering both teams’ recent performances—especially St.Louis’s tendency towards low-scoring games (the total has gone UNDER in seven of their last eight)—I would lean towards expecting another UNDER outcome here.

In summary, my prediction is that we’ll see the Cubs emerge victorious against the Cardinals tonight while keeping things tight on scoring; I anticipate that they will win by leveraging their stronger batting lineup combined with Rea’s solid pitching performance against an inconsistent Cardinals offense struggling right now after being shut out recently by Pittsburgh.

So gear up for what promises to be an exciting night at Wrigley!