| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 4 | 0 | 0.00 | +9.32 |
| Last 30 Days | 39 | 38 | 0.00 | +17.54 |
| Season to Date | 43 | 43 | 0.00 | +16.40 |
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All plays are 2 units. Listed pitchers must go.
MIAMI +111 over Los Angeles
Josh Beckett has put up some pretty sweet numbers to begin the year. In 22 innings, covering four starts, Beckett has allowed just 12 hits and six earned runs for an ERA of 2.45 and a BAA of just .162. He also has a BB/K split of 8/22. However, the Dodgers are being cautious with Beckett. He’s only pitched past the fifth inning once in four games. His swinging strike rate of 8% does not support his 22 K’s. He’s also had the luxury of pitching three games at Chavez Ravine and one at AT&T Park and his numbers have been greatly aided by an 86% strand rate. Beckett is in his 13th year and will be remembered as one of the principals in the Red Sox September dump deal of 2012. While he did recover nicely after the trade, on the whole, he’s been in a steady decline for years. One of Beckett’s characteristics in the past has been a consistent K rate. That changed in 2012. Beckett has lost almost 2 mph on his fastball, which averaged 91 mph in 2012. In the past two seasons, he’s surrendered less grounders and more fly balls than the two previous ones. He’s now a fragile soft-tosser with very little upside.
The Dodgers played a double-header in Minnesota yesterday. The second game went 12 innings and ended very late. Although we don’t have the info, chances are the Dodgers got into Miami sometime around 4:30 AM. Double-headers are draining, especially in colder weather. The Dodgers swept that DH and now they go into Miami as a favorite with a very average pitcher going. The Marlins continue to get no respect. They just swept the Braves while outscoring them in the three-game set, 24-8. Last night’s win was the most impressive, as they had to fight back from a couple of blown leads and they did. The Fish are now 12-4 at home where they’re hitting .301 against righties. Tom Koehler went 5-10 with a 4.41 ERA in 143 IP for Miami last year. However, this was an unheralded rookie reliever that was thrust into the starting rotation for a lousy team. It spelled disaster. There were some of those, and a few gems. This season, Koehler is 2-2 with a 2.97 ERA and he has thrown four pure quality starts in five tries. He has a very respectable 48%/18%/34% groundball/line-drive/fly-ball split. Koehler is not going to dazzle but he’ll usually keep the Marlins in the game and give them a chance to win. That said, this one is more about fading Beckett and backing the Marlins, a team that is playing outstanding baseball in their own barn and it’s no fluke either.
CHICAGO +145 over St. Louis
2:20 PM EST. Adam Wainwright is 5-1 with a 1.20 ERA and that record and ERA has him heavily favored here. Wainwright has a track record you can invest in. Put 2011's TJS another year further into his rear-view mirror with rock-solid skills that are a virtual mirror-image from before and after surgery. The words "safe" and "starting pitcher" rarely intersects but they do here. That said, Wainwright cannot maintain this type of dominance. His swinging strike rate is just 9% and his groundball/fly-ball split is just 42%/37%. He's faced the Cubs once this season and allowed four earned runs in 7 innings. Last season he had a 3.20 ERA in four starts against Chicago and over the past three seasons he has a 3.38 ERA at Wrigley Field. What makes Wainwright an even bigger risk at this price is that the Cardinals are off to a slow start at the plate, hitting only .228, with a .614 OPS, the second lowest mark in the NL. Against lefties on the road, St. Louis is batting .193.
Travis Wood should never be taking back a price like this at Wrigley. Wood is at his best at home in day games where he has posted an ERA of 2.33. Wood has 31 K’s and just 7 walks issued in 31 innings. His swinging strike rate of 11% supports his K rate and interestingly enough, he has the EXACT same groundball/line-drive/fly-ball rate as Wainwright. In fact, Woods’ entire profile is almost the spitting image of his mound opponent today. The only difference between the two is strand percentage, where Wainwright’s is an unsustainable 85% while Woods’ strand rate is an unfortunate 72%. In the end, we get outstanding value on the Cubs in a game they have at least a 50% chance of winning.
Oakland +111 over Boston
The Red Sox are coming off a double-header sweep at home against the Rays. In that DH, Tampa pitching issued 17 walks (7 in Game 1 and 10 in Game 2), yet Boston scored once in the opener and five in the nightcap. The five they scored in the nightcap all came in one inning in which Chris Archer walked the bases loaded and hit a batter. Had the Rays staff not been wild, the Red Sox may have gone scoreless. Now this veteran team will come right back at it today after an exhausting day yesterday and will rely on Clay Buchholz to get right-sided. Buchholz last faced Oakland in 2012, and it wasn't a good experience, as the A's pounded him for six earned runs in only 6.2 IP. He wasn't much better against them in 2011, with a 5.40 ERA in two starts. Thus far this season, he's been inconsistent, with two pure quality starts in five outings. His two disasters both came at Fenway Park, where he has a 16.20 ERA this season. Batters have been squaring up on him, as his eye-opening 30% hr/f at Fenway will attest to. That likely isn’t going to bode well against the hot-hitting A’s.
Oakland is 5-2 on their current road trip and they’re coming off a sweep in Texas with a day off yesterday. They scored 25 runs in the three games. In fact, Oakland’s 102 runs scored on the road is the best mark in the majors and it’s not close. The team chasing them has scored 21 fewer runs. Dan Straily went 10-8 with a 3.96 ERA in 152 innings last season. His filthy slider makes up for his modest fastball and with a top-tier swinging K rate and prior profile as minor-league strikeout leader, more strikeouts are coming. Straily just keeps getting better. His WHIP the last two years have decreased from 1.32 to 1.24 and this year it’s 1.21. His xERA has decreased in the past two years from 5.04 to 4.21 to this year’s 3.67, which is almost 1½ runs lower than his actual ERA. Straily’s swinging strike rate this year is an elite 15% and he now has 28 K’s in 28 frames. This is a guy that is as close to a breakout as any young starter in the game and with the way his team is swinging the bats, he’s likely to get some run support. The A’s are almost always a live pooch and they remain so here as well.
