| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 1 | 0 | 0.00 | +2.30 |
| Last 30 Days | 35 | 42 | 0.00 | +2.40 |
| Season to Date | 58 | 63 | 0.00 | +12.79 |
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Listed pitchers must go
All plays are for 2 units.
Seattle +115 over BALTIMORE
Miguel Gonzalez is 4-2 with an ERA of 2.93. At home, Gonzalez is 2-0 with an ERA of 2.18. Taijuan Walker is 1-4 with an ERA of 7.22. On the road, Walker is 1-3 with an ERA of 10.33. Despite the huge ERA discrepancies, the oddsmakers opened this game up with the Orioles being a small -125 favorite. Why so cheap? Either the oddsmakers posted a bad line or they trust that Walker will have a very good game and/or Gonzalez will have a bad one. We’ll side with the latter because the under the surface stats says Gonzalez has been living a charmed life while Walker has had nothing but bad luck.
Miguel Gonzalez is 31-years-old. This is just his fourth major-league season, meaning he spent seven years in the minors. He went 22-24 overall with a 3.63 ERA in his minor league career, starting just 53 games in 160 appearances. Gonzalez, for the most part, was a minor league reliever. Last season, for the second straight year, his groundball and strikeout rates took a turn for the worse in the second half, and the gap between his ERA/xERA (3.23/4.36) shows just how fortunate he was (thank you, strand rate). As a fly-ball pitcher lacking swing-and-miss stuff, he needs luck on his side to retain any type of value. If and when it runs out, Gonzalez is barely above average. Over his last five starts covering 30 innings, Gonzalez has a BB/K split of 11/19 and a groundball/line-drive/fly-ball rate of 34%/21%/45%. His xERA over that span was 4.53 and once again his strand rate of 79% shows that he’s walking a very thin line. Gonzalez has some blowups forthcoming and it would surprise us not if one occurred here.
Last season, Taijuan Walker went 2-3 with a 2.61 ERA in 38 innings for the Mariners. This premium prospect got derailed by a balky shoulder. However, his 95 MPH heat, solid skills and command vRHB show his upside when healthy. Walker couldn't find the plate against lefties so he re-worked his mechanics and thrived this past spring when he posted a 0.67 ERA over 25 spring innings. In the spring, Walker allowed nine hits in those 25 innings and struck out 24 batters. Spring training doesn’t hold much weight but there are tons of examples over the years of pitchers thriving in the spring and carrying it over to the regular season. In fact, this past spring, Michael Pineda and Nathan Eovaldi showed the biggest improvement in strikeout percentage from their previous marks and Walker was third on that list. Walker hasn’t had the same success ear;y on as Eovaldi and Pineda but his metrics say he’s on the verge. Walker has a BB/K split of 15/33 in 34 innings. A very unlucky 60% strand rate has torpedoed his surface stats. Over his last 26 frames, he has whiffed 27 batters and all of his other skills are trending in the right direction. Walker is not a one-win in seven starts pitcher. He’s much better than that and he is much better than his surface stats too. We’re buying low on Walker.
Toronto -1½ +172 over Anaheim
While Daniel Norris was the first Blue Jay to earn a demotion, Aaron Sanchez may be right behind him. In his last three starts, and in five of his seven starts on the season, Sanchez has walked more batters than he has struck out. In 38 innings, Sanchez has an awful BB/K split of 29/25. However, Sanchez has showcased his filthy stuff enough for us to bite because if he throws strikes, the Angels have little hope here. Sanchez possesses dynamic stuff thrown with an easy delivery and quick arm action. He owns a tough-to-hit, heavy 92-98 mph fastball and gets ample movement on his two-seamer. His plus curveball is a dominant offering that he can drop into the zone or get hitters to chase. Regardless of the pitch he uses, he induces weak contact and when hitters make contact it usually comes in the way of a groundball. Sanchez's 58%/19%/23% groundball/line-drive/fly-ball rate is one of the best batted ball profiles in the game. His problem is an erratic walk rate and a high percentage of pitches that are not strikes. Sanchez continues to work hard to try and improve his command. He has All-Star potential with that filthy stuff and 95 MPH heat. The good news is that Sanchez will be facing an Angels team that couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat.
Chris Iannetta is batting .123. Matt Joyce is hitting .137. Albert Pujols is batting .223. David Freese, Collin Cowgill and Marc Krauss (DH) are hitting .227, .189 and .125 respectively. Teams are pitching around Mike Trout or giving him nothing to hit because the rest of the lineup isn't producing. Overall, the Angels are a bottom four team in just about every offensive category including runs scored, team batting average and on base percentage (OBP). Offensively speaking, give a big edge to Toronto at this park, especially when facing a fly-ball pitcher like the one they’ll see here. Hector Santiago is 2-2 with an ERA of 2.41. Don’t believe it for a second, especially considering that five of his seven starts came at the Big A, where fly-balls that are hit deep stay in the yard. Santiago is just another so-so pitcher who is off to a sparkling start without the skills to back it so now would be the time to sell high on him. Santiago’s brutal groundball/fly-ball split of 32%/45% will not play well at this unforgiving park. His groundball/fly-ball split in his last game was 18%/47% with a line-drive rate of 35%. The Jays have been crushing southpaws all season and they figure to do the same here against this imposter.
MIAMI -1½ +167 over Arizona
The D-Backs took the opener of this series last night in 13 innings but we see major regression on the horizon for this team and we`re going to start attacking them starting with this one. In their past four games, the Snakes have scored 11 runs. Three of those four games occurred in Philadelphia against three weak starters where the Diamondbacks were swept in Philly. They’ll now face Tom Koehler. Koehler is not going to blow anyone away but he’s had great success at this park. Koehler had a 3.00 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP in 96 innings at Marlins Park last season compared to a 4.63 ERA, 1.46 WHIP and 10 HR surrendered in 95.1 IP on the road. It’s much of the same this year with a 2.11 ERA at home after four starts. Koehler is throwing more strikes than ever before and the result is an uptick in strikeouts. Still, this one is all about fading one of the games’ biggest stiffs in the game in Jeremy Hellickson.
Hellickson has surrendered 49 hits in 38 frames for an oppBA of .310. In three road starts at three pitchers parks (San Diego, San Fran and Chavez Ravine in Los Angeles) Hellickson surrendered nine runs and 21 hits in 18.1 innings. His WHIP of 1.68 is among the worst in the league. Now his walks are increasing. Hellickson has walked 10 batters over his last 27 frames. In his last start he walked four and struck out three. His first pitch strike rate of just 57% suggests he’s becoming more hesitant to go right after hitters. Hellickson’s declining velocity and inability to generate groundballs sets a low ceiling. His disaster starts history is also piling up. We don’t see a single skill in which Hellickson is thriving in. He’s a former fourth round pick that outpitched his skills by a wide margin in his time with the Rays. The D-Backs are paying this stiff 4.5M per so they’ll continue to run him out there every fifth day. The Marlins will now play their second game under their new manager and those that played the “new manager angle” last night were very likely a day too early. This is the day the Fish get off the mattress.
