MLB · Mon, Aug 3 · 7:05 PM

Cardinals at Yankees

O/U 8 · RL Yankees -1.5

GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Cardinals· -106

First pitch of a nine-game homestand in the Bronx, and the Cardinals roll in for the opener on a warm night with the wind nudging out toward center field. The Yankees just spent a week in Chicago winning games two runs at a time — the rotation dragging a sleepwalking lineup to six wins in ten — and now they hand the ball to Cam Schlittler, the best thing they have going, against a St. Louis club that has dropped seven of ten and spent deadline week selling. The mismatch on the mound is the widest on this slate. Schlittler is 10-6 with a 2.04, striking out more than a batter an inning, holding lefties and righties alike under .200 with a fastball that sits near 98 — and he draws a Cardinals lineup scoring under three runs a game for two weeks with the top of the order ice cold. Michael McGreevy is the other side of the coin: a low-90s four-seamer that gets hit hard — over 42 percent hard contact allowed this season — a whiff rate that has been shrinking for a month, and a last start in which the Cubs ran him out of the game in the second inning. Now he gets Yankee Stadium with seven left-handed bats and a switch-hitter stacked in front of that short porch, including Luis Garcia Jr., who arrived from Washington carrying a .954 OPS over his last two weeks and slots straight into the three-hole, and Spencer Jones, who has three homers in a week with everything screaming off his bat. Here's the honest tension: the Yankees scored exactly two runs in three straight games, Judge and Bellinger are still watching, and Schlittler has been merely good at home rather than untouchable — that's why I'm not laying the full freight on a moneyline that has climbed all day. But those two-run nights came against real pitching, and tonight is the softest arm this lineup has seen in weeks. Behind McGreevy, St. Louis is thin — JoJo Romero is gone to Milwaukee, the trusted late-inning arms all worked yesterday, and the long relief just got scored on twice in Toronto. If McGreevy is short again, the Cardinals are patching six innings on the road in a hitter's park. At a shade under even money, I'll take the Yankees to win this one by more than a run. Yankees -1.5.

The mismatch on the mound is the widest on this slate. Schlittler is 10-6 with a 2.04, striking out more than a batter an inning, holding lefties and righties alike under .200 with a fastball that sits near 98 — and he draws a Cardinals lineup scoring under three runs a game for two weeks with the top of the order ice cold. Michael McGreevy is the other side of the coin: a low-90s four-seamer that gets hit hard — over 42 percent hard contact allowed this season — a whiff rate that has been shrinking for a month, and a last start in which the Cubs ran him out of the game in the second inning. Now he gets Yankee Stadium with seven left-handed bats and a switch-hitter stacked in front of that short porch, including Luis Garcia Jr., who arrived from Washington carrying a .954 OPS over his last two weeks and slots straight into the three-hole, and Spencer Jones, who has three homers in a week with everything screaming off his bat.

Here's the honest tension: the Yankees scored exactly two runs in three straight games, Judge and Bellinger are still watching, and Schlittler has been merely good at home rather than untouchable — that's why I'm not laying the full freight on a moneyline that has climbed all day. But those two-run nights came against real pitching, and tonight is the softest arm this lineup has seen in weeks. Behind McGreevy, St. Louis is thin — JoJo Romero is gone to Milwaukee, the trusted late-inning arms all worked yesterday, and the long relief just got scored on twice in Toronto. If McGreevy is short again, the Cardinals are patching six innings on the road in a hitter's park. At a shade under even money, I'll take the Yankees to win this one by more than a run. Yankees -1.5.

The pick & result

Published pick: Yankees -1.5 -106
Published odds: -106
Result: Lost
Final score: 13-7

Odds are the American price printed with this pick, not a current offer. Wins, losses and pushes remain on the public record; a missing grade is not a win.

The read

**Gary's Take — fan version**

The Yankees open a long stretch of home games tonight against the Cardinals, and the timing couldn't be better. My guys just grinded out a rough week in Chicago where the bats were asleep and the pitching carried them, and now they hand the ball to Cam Schlittler — the best pitcher they've got right now — against a St. Louis team that's been losing constantly and just spent the trade deadline giving away players instead of adding them.

This is the biggest pitching mismatch of the night, and it isn't close. Schlittler has been dominant all year — nobody's hitting him, he's blowing hitters away with a fastball that's nearly untouchable — and he's facing a Cardinals lineup that can barely score right now, with their best hitters in a deep freeze. On the other side, Michael McGreevy throws a fastball that gets crushed, he's fooling fewer and fewer hitters lately, and his last time out he got knocked out of the game almost immediately. Now he has to face a Yankees lineup built to punish him at Yankee Stadium, where that short right-field fence eats up soft pitching — including new arrival Luis Garcia Jr., who's been red hot since coming over from Washington, and Spencer Jones, who's been crushing everything in sight lately.

I'll be honest about the worry: the Yankees' offense has been sputtering, Judge and Bellinger are still out, and Schlittler hasn't been quite as unhittable at home. That's why I'm not going all-in on them just to win. But those quiet nights came against good pitchers, and tonight is the easiest arm they've seen in weeks. And if McGreevy gets knocked out early again, the Cardinals bullpen is in real trouble — their best relievers are either traded away or worn out, and the backups just got roughed up. So I'm asking the Yankees to do a little more than just win: I want them to win comfortably, by a couple of runs. Yankees to win by more than one.

The full analysis

The research

The dated measurements the app shows under this card — observations with their sample and source, not predictions.

STARTER FORM

Michael McGreevy: 7.53 ERA over his last 3 starts
7.53
7.53 ERA and a 1.88 WHIP across his last three starts — whatever number gets built off his 3.57 season line tonight is pricing a pitcher who hasn't looked like that in a month.

PLATOON EDGE

Alec Burleson (bats L) hits 3rd against Cam Schlittler (RHP)
.941
Burleson hitting third against a right-hander is exactly the look I want for him — a .941 mark against that side isn't some small-sample number, that's 292 at-bats of real signal.
Luis Garcia Jr. (bats L) gets a RHP from the 3rd spot
.918
Same story on the other side of this one — Garcia in the 3-hole against a righty, .918 OPS on 302 at-bats against that side. Two lineups, two favorable platoon looks in the same spot tonight.

HEAT CHECK

Spencer Jones: .958 OPS in Last 15 Days
.958
Only 24 plate appearances behind this one, but .958 in that stretch against a .754 season line is still a real jump worth knowing before that 1.5 total-bases number gets bet.

COOLING OFF

Ben Rice: .566 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Michael McGreevy
.566
Rice is cold right now, but the matchup bails him out on paper — he's a .982 hitter against right-handers, and McGreevy fits that exactly. I'd watch this one for a bounce-back before I'd bet on the slump continuing.
Trent Grisham: .329 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Michael McGreevy
.329
Grisham's been cold for two weeks, but tonight's matchup is actually one of his better ones — McGreevy's a righty, and that's the side he's hit better all year. If there's a night for this to turn, it's this one.

HR THREAT

Spencer Jones
+452
Gary's Take Jones has three home runs in his last week, and the contact behind them isn't cheap — he's averaging 97 miles an hour off the bat with five barrels among his last fifteen batted balls, so this isn't a couple of lucky bounces. He's a left-handed pull hitter walking into a right field porch that's practically built for him, against a right-hander who's been living on borrowed time all year.
Luis Garcia Jr.
+402
Gary's Take Garcia walked into a first-place lineup this week and hasn't blinked — two home runs and an OPS over 1.100 in his last seven games, three homers in his last two weeks, and he's been one of the more dangerous bats in this lineup against right-handed pitching all season. Tonight he sees a right-hander in McGreevy who has one of the more hittable arsenals in the league right now — hitters are batting .364 against his cutter, one of the worst marks he throws.
Ben Rice
+298
Gary's Take Rice hasn't gone deep in his last week, but I'm not reading much into that — he's put up sixteen home runs at home this season alone, and his numbers against right-handed pitching are near the top of this roster. McGreevy's cutter has been hit hard by everybody who's seen it, a .364 average against it, and Rice is a hitter who does his damage over the heart of the plate.

FIRST INNING

NYY have gone quiet in the 1st: runs in 1 of their last 10
1/10
New York's own bats have produced a first-inning run just once in their last ten games, and it's not one-sided — Schlittler's been excellent in his own first innings this year at .183 against, while McGreevy sits at a respectable .260 himself. Both halves of that opening frame lean quiet, and the board's pricing the under as the favorite here.

BALLPARK

At Yankee Stadium, Cam Schlittler pitches to a 3.83 ERA
3.83
Schlittler's actually been sharper on the road than at Yankee Stadium — 1.10 ERA elsewhere against 3.83 at home, across nine starts in the Bronx. Worth knowing before anyone assumes his own park is automatically the better spot for him.

REPLACEMENT

Jose Fermin (.564 vs RHP) replaces Ramon Urias at 3B tonight
.666
Fermin's only in the lineup because Urias has been dealing with an elbow issue the last four days, and the matchup he walks into isn't an easy one either — .564 against right-handers, and Schlittler's exactly that from the 8th spot. Playing time without a favorable matchup to go with it.

TEAM RECORD

Cardinals 2-6 in Michael McGreevy's last 8 starts
2-6
St. Louis is 2-6 in McGreevy's last eight starts, and given where his peripherals actually sit, that record might be a more honest read on this staff than his ERA is. Rough spot to be walking into Yankee Stadium with that behind him.

REGRESSION

Michael McGreevy: 3.57 ERA vs 5.66 xERA
5.66
Two-plus runs separate his 3.57 ERA from a 5.66 xERA, and the contact numbers explain why — a 42.6% hard-hit rate and a barrel rate over 10%, against results that have only allowed a .252 average on an expected .290. That's soft results sitting on top of hard contact, walking into a lineup like the Yankees'.
Trent Grisham: .211 AVG vs .246 xBA
.246
Same story as his last two weeks at the plate — the results are lagging behind the contact quality. A .246 expected average against what he's actually hit says part of this slump is just balls finding gloves instead of grass.

CLOSER WATCH

David Bednar
24 SV
David Bednar owns the ninth for the Yankees — 24 saves this season (next closest: Ryan Yarbrough with 2).
Riley O'Brien
26 SV
Riley O'Brien owns the ninth for the Cardinals — 26 saves this season (next closest: George Soriano with 2).

FANTASY PICKUPS

Spencer Jones
.754 OPS
Pickup vs Michael McGreevy (5.66 xERA) — .754 OPS, bats 4th.

CUT LIST

Michael McGreevy
5.66 xERA
Starts tonight for STL — 5.66 xERA behind a 3.57 ERA — the ERA is flattering him.
Masyn Winn
0.642 OPS
Still hitting 6th for STL — 0.642 OPS, 0.241 AVG from the 6-hole.
Jasson Dominguez
0.653 OPS
Still hitting 5th for NYY — 0.653 OPS, 0.230 AVG from the 5-hole.

All research from this day

About this analysis

Who made it: Gary AI, an AI sports-analysis product operated by Gary A.I. LLC. No human reviewer is claimed unless one is explicitly named.
Published data: Daily picks first stored August 3, 2026 at 5:39 PM ET.
Odds record: The pick receipt shows the price printed in the published ticket. The matchup market and line ladder provide separate market context. Stored sportsbook sources: fanduel, betmgm, draftkings, caesars, betrivers, fanatics.
Accountability: Read the editorial standards, source policy, and corrections process.

Props on this game

GARY'S PICK
CAM SCHLITTLERK'S OVER 6.5
MLBNew York Yankees· -148
LOST · ACTUAL 6
Schlittler's climbing into another gear right now, not settling into one. His whiff rate has jumped to 31 and then 35 percent over his last two starts, the fastball is sitting late-90s, and the curveball is getting swung through nearly half the time it's thrown. He's cleared seven strikeouts in six of his last eight turns. St. Louis walks into this one buried — Wetherholt, Nootbaar, Church, Crooks are all deep in miserable stretches at the plate — and this pitcher has handled both lefties and righties on this roster to sub-.200 batting averages this year. A cold lineup running into a swing-and-miss arm that's getting better, not worse. I want the strikeouts.
Cam Schlittler
K'S over 6.5
-148 · LOST · ACTUAL 6
New York Yankees
Schlittler's climbing into another gear right now, not settling into one. His whiff rate has jumped to 31 and then 35 percent over his last two starts, the fastball is sitting late-90s, and the curveball is getting swung through nearly half the time it's thrown. He's cleared seven strikeouts in six of his last eight turns.
St. Louis walks into this one buried — Wetherholt, Nootbaar, Church, Crooks are all deep in miserable stretches at the plate — and this pitcher has handled both lefties and righties on this roster to sub-.200 batting averages this year. A cold lineup running into a swing-and-miss arm that's getting better, not worse.
I want the strikeouts.
GARY'S PICK
MICHAEL MCGREEVYK'S UNDER 4.5
MLBSt. Louis Cardinals· -144
LOST · ACTUAL 5
McGreevy's swing-and-miss stuff has been evaporating start to start — his whiff rate has fallen from the low-20s down to single digits and back to the low-teens over his last five outings, and his most recent start didn't survive the second inning. His fastball and cutter are both getting squared up hard right now, the cutter in particular getting hit for real damage. When hitters are putting bat on ball instead of missing it, the punchouts dry up, and he's been under this number in six of his last eight starts. I don't see a reason that changes tonight against a Yankees lineup that's still plenty capable even without Judge and Bellinger in it.
Michael McGreevy
K'S under 4.5
-144 · LOST · ACTUAL 5
St. Louis Cardinals
McGreevy's swing-and-miss stuff has been evaporating start to start — his whiff rate has fallen from the low-20s down to single digits and back to the low-teens over his last five outings, and his most recent start didn't survive the second inning. His fastball and cutter are both getting squared up hard right now, the cutter in particular getting hit for real damage. When hitters are putting bat on ball instead of missing it, the punchouts dry up, and he's been under this number in six of his last eight starts. I don't see a reason that changes tonight against a Yankees lineup that's still plenty capable even without Judge and Bellinger in it.

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