The Pirates are coming into this game with a 31-34 record this season, but they have been playing much better in their recent games. They have seen 8+ runs in 3 of their last 5 games and their offense has been heating up in those games. They are going up against a Cardinals team that is 31-33 this season and has also been playing in some high scoring games recently. They have seen 8+ runs in 2 of their last 3 games and their offense has also been great in those. Miles Mikolas is starting for the Cardinals in this game and he is 4-6 with a 5.32 ERA this season. He has allowed at least 2 earned runs in each of his last 3 starts as well as allowing at least 3 earned runs in 2 of his last 3, and he has also had a few starts which he allowed 5 earned runs or more this year. He has not been great at home either, allowing at least 3 earned runs in 3 of his last 4 home starts, allowing at least 5 earned runs in 2 of those as well. He has been giving up a lot of runs at home recently, but the team has also been scoring runs for him in those games. The team has scored at least 5 runs in each of his last 4 home starts as well as allowing at least 6 runs in 3 of those, all 4 of those games going over 8 runs total as well. Paul Skenes is starting for the Pirates in this game and he is 3-0 with a 3.00 ERA this season as he has been very good in his starts, but the Pirates also have a similar effect taking place in his starts. Skenes does not allow many runs but he did allow 3 earned runs in his last start as well as 5 earned runs in his last 2 starts. He has only made 5 starts this season but the lowest scoring game that he started in was a game with 12 total runs. The team always gets up for Skenes as they have won 4 of the 5 games he started in and they have scored at least 6 runs in all of those games. The bullpen has not been great once he leaves though, also allowing at least 6 runs in 2 of the last 3 and 3 of the 5 games he started in. Both of these offenses have been heating up recently and neither of these starters are going to pitch shutouts in this game. Both of these offenses have also been getting up to score runs for their respective starters so there is going to be more runs in this game even after these two leave. Between these two teams, there will be enough runs in this game to push it over the total.