| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 3 | 2 | 0.00 | +2.18 |
| Last 30 Days | 37 | 50 | 0.00 | +0.24 |
| Season to Date | 181 | 259 | 0.00 | -42.98 |
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Both bets are for 2 units
HOME TEAM IN CAPS
Pittsburgh +111 over SAN FRAN
3:45 PM EST. The Giants continue to stumble down the stretch. San Fran has now dropped three in a row, four of five and five of their past seven games and they have not won back-to-back games since July. With each passing loss, winning the next time out becomes more difficult and in no way would be trust Matt Cain when spotting a tag to get this thing right-sided. Cain missed two starts in late May and returned to a 1-4 record with a 5.20 ERA in his 54 innings pitched. He pitched one game and hit the DL again. In the month leading up to his injury, Cain appeared to have distanced himself from his awful April (7.00 ERA, 1.58 WHIP), posting a 3.38 ERA and 1.28 WHIP in his five May starts. Still, it should be noted that Cain’s May strand rate was a hearty 80%, and there wasn’t a large disparity between the two months’ xERAs (4.79 and 4.42). Cain now brings his 5.47 ERA, 1.57 WHIP and .308 oppBA to this start. Incidentally, AT&T Park is not a pitchers park during the day so Cain’s fly-ball tendencies do not figure to play well like they do in night games in which the damp nighttime air makes scoring difficult. Cain’s groundball/fly-ball split of 37%/38% is just another troubling peripheral in his profile. Cain is a starter that threw just 61 innings last year after a strained flexor tendon at the end of spring training wiped out his first half. He was a shell of his former self when he came back and he’s been like that ever since. Cain’s velocity has now reached a career low and his strikeout rate is not far behind. Cain no longer has durability and a low hr/f going for him. He looks like longshot to pitch deep into a game or be productive, much less both.
Ivan Nova produced some decent value in July (3.86 ERA, 1.21 WHIP). His underlying skills were good too, and featured both strikeouts and groundballs: 8.7 K’s/9, 2.9 BB/9, 49% groundballs. His 11.0% swing and miss rate confirms that his strikeout rate was legit. A 1.9 HR/9 was the reason his ERA stayed around 4.00. Getting traded to Pittsburgh was a great fit for him. Nova’s value went up tremendously since the trade but the market isn’t considering that yet. There is a big drop in class in terms of hitters one must face when going from the AL East and facing Baltimore, Boston and Toronto frequently to facing NL teams with a hitting pitcher. Nova has two wicked pitches in his 92 mph sinker (18% swing and miss rate) and 81 mph curve ball (16% swing and miss rate). There is some sneaky value here and we’re on it. We also get the team in much better form.
ARIZONA -1½ +166 over N.Y. Mets
9:40 PM EST. Jonathan Niese has stayed healthy for once but his skills are ill. Niese has shown a strikeout rate drop mostly against lefties but both sides are swinging less. Perennially hittable, Niese needs great control to avoid an awful WHIP, which he is not getting, as his 43 BB in 116 frames will attest to. His first-pitch strike rate of 62% says that's still possible, but without swing and miss stuff, that likely just means more hits. Niese gets this start only because Logan Verrett's latest debacle not only cost him a spot in the rotation, but also a spot on the roster. Niese is not an upgrade and now he’ll bring his 5.04 xERA to go along with his horrible 1.58 WHIP to this unforgiving park. Niese was already fringe at his peak and now he’s way past that.
This market mostly invests in surface stats and that is one of the reasons there is so much value in taking back prices, be it on the run line or money line and Zack Godley is a perfect example of that with his 5.24 ERA. Godley is a most unusual pitching prospect, as he started out as a reliever, only converting to a starter in '15. However, he went 5-1 with a 3.19 ERA last season in just 37 innings, which was a small sample size to be sure. Fast forward to the present and Godley’s underlying stats are even better now. Godley is now a sweet under-the-radar starter worth targeting. Check out his strong skill base during his last four starts: 8.3 K’s/9 2.4 BB’s/9 and 52% grounders. Godley’s excellent year to date 13% swing and miss rate supports his K-rate. Blame an unlucky high 37% hit rate and a low 61% strand rate during the last month for Godley’s poor surface stats. We now get to buy low on him because of said stats. If you don’t like playing run-lines, there is still tremendous value in playing the D-Backs in the -120 range because they should be much higher than that against Niese. Figure the D-Backs to put up a crooked number and cover this extra half run. We much prefer the run line and the sweet tag that goes with it.
