Cardinals @ Tigers
Both of these ball clubs are coming off series wins against their respective opponents.
St. Louis took 2/3 in New York versus the Mets and Detroit also took 2/3, however, at home over the Royals.
The Tigers produced some much needed victories on their home turf considering they are 6-8 at Comerica Park.
Tonight they’ll be looking to improve that record behind right-handed pitcher Kenta Maeda.
Maeda hasn’t provided the strongest of numbers, but there are signs of encouragement.
He has a 5.96 ERA and an xFIP of 4.67. So while that's still not incredibly appealing, there are signs of positive regression. Plus, his batting average of balls in play (BABIP), is only .250, his line drive percentage is 15% and his ground ball rate is over 43%. Perhaps he’s been receiving a bit of bad luck.
He’s also coming off of his best performance this season after throwing five shutout innings down in Tampa Bay. Maeda allowed just three hits, racked up five strikeouts and walked no batters.
His opponent tonight has been lackluster against righties. The Cards rank 23rd in weighted runs created plus against RHP (87), have an average of .228 and an on-base plus slugging percentage of .652.
St. Louis will look for southpaw Steven Matz to pitch a gem. Though, based on what we’ve seen from him thus far I don’t believe that should be expected.
Matz has a 5.55 ERA and an xFIP of 4.84. Similar numbers to Maeda’s, yes, however other metrics indicate the woes will persist.
His BABIP is .346 and his line drive rate is 30% compared to his ground ball rate of 33.3%. That is a very narrow gap in what should usually be considerably wider for pitchers you want to back.
Over the course of the last two weeks Detroit has performed well vs LHP ranking 8th in wRC+ (120), and featuring a .325 weighted on base average.
The Tigers appear as the better team in this showdown and that’s also been reflected in the market as bettors have moved them from underdogs to favorites.
Play: Tigers ML (-108); Risk 1.08 units to win 1.00
Phillies @ Angels
These two squads are on opposite ends of the spectrum currently.
Philadelphia has won their four previous outings, while Los Angeles has dropped all four of theirs.
The lefty Cristopher Sanchez will aim to make that five straight for the Phillies as he represents them on the mound this evening. Sanchez has been tremendous. He’s posted a 2.96 ERA, a 2.74 xERA, a 2.23 FIP and an xFIP of 3.05. His ground ball rate is over 66%, too.
The Angels are middle of the pack vs LHP with a 96 wRC+, .678 OPS and a .305 wOBA.
Defensively, Los Angeles has RHP Griffin Canning starting. He has surrendered 20 ER throughout five starts this season. His ERA is 7.50, his FIP is 5.35 and his ground ball rate is sub-34%.
The Phillies have finally found their rhythm offensively and have posted a 104 wRC+, .738 OPS and a .324 wOBA vs RHP.
Philly also gets a slight nod with their relief pitching. Despite their ERA displaying a number of 5.53, their underlying metrics show that they should be performing better as their xFIP is 3.78.
The Angels’ bullpen has a 5.55 ERA, but an xFIP of 4.61.
I expect the road team to come out on top of this matchup.
Phillies ML (-139); Risk 1.39 units to win 1.00
Dodgers @ Diamondbacks
This meeting should provide some firepower. The total is listed at 10 and the bats are hot for each club.
There will be two lefties dueling on the mound: James Paxton for Los Angeles and Tommy Henry for Arizona.
The D’Backs come in as the best team in MLB against LHP with a wRC+ of 139, an OPS of .863 and a wOBA of .377.
Those numbers may increase after tonight, too, because Paxton is displaying a concerning amount of red flags.
His ERA of 2.61 seems great at first glance, however - when you dig deeper you can see that his expected ERA is 5.33, his FIP is 5.84 and his xFIP is 6.22. He’s striking out 4.79 batters per nine innings in comparison to walking 7.40 per nine.
He is due to get pummeled and it would make sense for those stars to align against the top offense versus lefties.
As for Henry, he has not been the smoothest of pitchers either, per se. His ERA is 5.55, although is xFIP is 3.83. He’s got a solid ground ball rate of 50% and is coming off his best outing of the season at St. Louis, where he allowed just one ER through six innings of work.
The Dodgers offense always presents an intimidating threat and comes in top-10 in wRC+ vs southpaws (113).
The price just seems too steep to back the favorite and that has been reflected in the market. At Circa Sportsbook, the Diamondbacks opened as high as +130 and can now be viewed as low as +113.
I took Arizona at +123, at BetRivers, with the hope that they can punish Paxton.
Play: Diamondbacks ML (+123); Risk 1.00 units to win 1.23
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