The first full month of the baseball season is officially over, so it provides a good opportunity to pit 2026 teams against where they were at the same point in 2025. At this juncture last season, the Los Angeles Dodgers — who ultimately went on to win the World Series for the second straight season — were 21-10. Currently, they’re 20-11.

They’ll begin the month of May (in which they went 15-12 last season) with an 8:15 p.m. ET matchup tonight against the St. Louis Cardinals. At this point last season, the Cardinals were 14-17, but they had an extremely hot May (19-8). Right now, they’re 18-13.

Los Angeles will send Emmet Sheehan to the mound for the series opener, while Matthew Liberatore will toe the rubber for St. Louis.

Let’s break down this matchup with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.

Los Angeles Dodgers at St. Louis Cardinals prediction, preview

The Dodgers’ starting rotation, a strength last season once Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani returned from their injuries, has been even better so far in 2026, and Snell hasn’t even made his season debut. Additionally, Los Angeles has the league’s best offense, posting an OPS 34 points higher than the second-place mark it had last season. Offensively, the Dodgers have had plenty of contributions from stars both established and young, with Max Muncy, Andy Pages, Ohtani, Dalton Rushing, Miguel Rojas, and Alex Call all putting up at least an .800 OPS. Los Angeles’ main issue this season has been its bullpen, though Edwin Díaz and Ben Casparius, its only relievers with an ERA north of 4.20, are both on the injured list, so it should be better moving forward. The Dodgers have arguably even gotten unlucky; thanks to a combination of lopsided victories and narrow defeats, their Pythagorean win-loss record is 22-9.

Still, Los Angeles enters this series with little momentum after losing two straight games, but the Cardinals have won four straight games, scoring at least four runs in all four. Their offense has improved dramatically relative to last season, jumping from 24th in OPS to eighth. They have a tantalizing young core, with 24-year-old Jordan Walker slashing .284/.354/.522 after being one of baseball’s worst qualified hitters last season and 2024 seventh overall pick JJ Wetherholt riding a seven-game hitting streak with four homers. However, both St. Louis’ starters and relievers rank among the league’s bottom 10 by ERA, with a stark collapse for the bullpen especially. Closer Riley O’Brien is basically the only Cardinal reliever who has pitched well this season, as Matt Svanson, Justin Bruihl, JoJo Romero, Ryne Stanek, and George Soriano have all been worth negative WAR. O’Brien’s late-game reliability has been a critical reason for St. Louis’ over-performance relative its run differential: its Pythagorean W-L is just 15-16.

Sheehan has been the second-worst of Los Angeles’ six starters, but given that Glasnow, Ohtani, Justin Wrobleski, and World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto are the four ahead of him, that doesn’t mean much. He’s perfectly capable of ace-level performances, pitching 6.1 innings of one-run ball his last time out, and he was in the rotation for much of last season, pitching to a 2.82 ERA. Advanced stats paint a relatively positive picture of Sheehan’s repertoire: he doesn’t have any glaring flaws, with his 38th-percentile ground ball rate his weakest Statcast category. Plus, that weakness should be mitigated tonight, given that the Cardinals hit grounders at the league’s seventh-highest rate. Sheehan excels at producing chases and whiffs, which should further stymie a St. Louis team with below-average bat-to-ball skills. The splits aren’t necessarily in his favor — for his career, he’s been far worse on the road than at home — but at least the Cardinals have been slightly worse both at home and against righties this season. Expecting a quality start (six or more innings, three or fewer earned runs) would be reasonable.

For the fifth consecutive season, Liberatore has been a slightly below-average pitcher. After finishing with an ERA between 4.20 and 6.00 in each of his first four campaigns as a pro, he’s at 4.75 so far in 2026, and he’s had three rough starts in his last four, giving up at least four earned runs in each. Advanced stats paint an even less positive picture of him: he has a 6.40 FIP and a 5.82 expected ERA, ranking in just the fourth percentile in pitching run value. He’s struggled to induce whiffs or strikeouts, and his 12th-percentile average exit velocity could be a major issue against a Dodgers lineup full of mashers. The only Statcast category in which he ranks above the league median is walk rate, and while Los Angeles hasn’t earned as many free passes this season as usual, it has finished in the top two in walks in each of the previous five seasons. Liberatore has been somewhat better at home throughout his career, but the Dodgers have enjoyed better production against lefties and on the road so far this season.

Los Angeles Dodgers at St. Louis Cardinals pick, best bet

Best Bet: Over 8 (-115)

While Sheehan is in a decent position to succeed against a grounder-reliant St. Louis offense, his road struggles have been a consistent theme in each of his three MLB seasons, and at this point, the sample size (67.1 innings) isn’t entirely fluky. Plus, even if Sheehan performs well, Los Angeles’ offense should have no trouble getting to Liberatore.

Strong Lean: Andy Pages 1+ Runs (+118)

Pages has scored at least one run in three of his last five games, and he has an excellent matchup in Liberatore, who’s allowed an OPS 108 points higher to right-handed batters in his career. Additionally, Liberatore likes to throw four-seam fastballs to right-handed batters, and while Pages hasn’t done a great job against lefty fastballs this season, he posted a .308 batting average against the pitch in 2025.