MLB bad beat: Through 8 innings, those Cardinals and under bets looked good

There's someone out there — and you probably have a lot of company — who thought the best way to start the MLB playoffs was to bet on the St. Louis Cardinals and also the under.

Through eight innings it looked great. And then it was really not great.

Runs are tough to come by in most postseason games, so under 6.5 was a reasonable play for Game 1 of the wild-card series between the Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies (both teams had -110 odds to win). A seventh-inning pinch-hit home run by Juan Yepez put the Cardinals ahead 2-0. The Cardinals bullpen is solid. We've seen playoff games like it before; a 2-0 final seemed likely. Seven runs? No way.

It seemed like the biggest fear for bettors was extra innings. However, it was actually a six-run ninth inning by the Phillies in which not one ball was hit hard.

The ninth even started off with a strikeout from Cardinals reliever Ryan Helsley. Then came a single from J.T. Realmuto, and when Helsley was careful to Bryce Harper it all started to fall apart.

Harper walked, as did Nick Castellanos. Alec Bohm was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and it was 2-1 Cardinals. Still, getting to seven total runs and ruining those over 6.5 bets was unlikely.

Helsley was taken out with an apparent injury, but new pitcher Andre Pallante couldn't stop the rally. It wasn't really his fault. Jean Segura reached for a pitch outside of the zone and poked a single to right, scoring two runs. It was 3-2, which still wasn't that bad for under bettors. Then Paul Goldschmidt tried throwing out a runner at home on a ground ball and was late. Phillies up 4-2. When Brandon Marsh got a soft ground ball past normally fantastic Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado it was all over, so to speak. The Phillies led 5-2, and added on a sacrifice fly later in the inning. On the ABC broadcast, Alex Rodriguez noted that no Phillies player hit a ball harder than 88 miles per hour the entire inning.

That didn't make any Cardinals or under bettors feel any better. The Cardinals beat was pretty bad. The under beat was brutal.

The Phillies won 6-3 in a wild ninth-inning comeback, and it was a fun result on the first day of the MLB playoffs. Cardinals and under bettors probably wouldn't say it was all too fun, though.