After treading water immediately following a midseason managerial change, the Cardinals caught fire days after the All-Star break. In fact, they entered the weekend with the best record in the National League since that hiatus, highlighted by an eight-game winning streak that ended Thursday night.

Most importantly for bettors, markets have been slow to react to the St. Louis surge. In a stretch that included the winning streak, backers only had to lay more than -150 twice during a 12-2 rampage through Colorado, Pittsburgh, Miami, Kansas City and Washington.

Even now, you can get the Cardinals at 20/1 to win the National League and 60/1 to win the World Series at William Hill. Not bad for a team that’s just a handful of games out of first place in its division and fewer away from a wild-card spot.

NL and World Series Odds

Team                    NL      WS
Dodgers               5/2     6/1
Phillies                 11/2    14/1
Diamondbacks    13/2    15/1
Braves                 13/2    18/1
Brewers                8/1      20/1
Rockies               12/1      30/1
Nationals            20/1     35/1
Cardinals            20/1      60/1

Those odds are not consistent with current win-loss records. Of course, this weekend’s series with Milwaukee is critical. Saturday night’s game will be nationally televised by FS1.

Scheduled to start for the Cardinals in that game is hidden gem Miles Mikolas. The righty is 12-3 with a 2.85 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, and the Cardinals are 17-7 when he starts, including 7-1 in the past eight games.

A great tip for bettors to remember is that the market often under-prices teams with unheralded starting pitching, while overpricing the most overpowering arms. Nobody on the Cardinals’ staff excites the public in the manner of Clayton Kershaw, Chris Sale and the like. This is the current rotation steamrolling the second half schedule:

Pick a Card

Maybe don’t pick Weaver. The rest will keep you in position to at least compete, and will win with normal run support.