Atlanta at Philadelphia (-110); Total: 9
Sharp money seems to prefer the Atlanta Braves today, which doesn’t really surprise me very much. RA Dickey goes for the Braves against Mark Leiter Jr. for the Phigtin’ Phils. The Phillies are now 49-81 on the season, but they are 12-2 against the Braves, so how’s that for crazy. The Braves are 57-72, so they are fading fast in the NL East standings.
RA Dickey is pitching for an audition with another team next season or for his $8M option to be picked up. Dickey and Bartolo Colon were picked up to be tutors, mentors, and innings eaters for the Braves this season. Dickey has managed to be somewhat effective. Colon wasn’t close to effective with Atlanta. Dickey has a 4.06 ERA with a 4.88 FIP and a 4.83 xFIP. Knuckleballers are a rare breed from a statistics standpoint, as it is really hard to put in controls for the unique rates and batted ball distributions of knucklers.
The Phillies lineup is full of younger hitters and they don’t see knuckleballers much coming up through the minors. That’s why Dickey could have a decent edge. Of course they’ve seen Dickey this season, but it is still a unique pitch to hit and it can really mess with timing. The Phillies probably aren’t a good match for that dancing offering.
Mark Leiter Jr. shows some signs of regression, hence the money coming in against Philadelphia. Leiter has a 3.86 ERA with a 5.10 FIP and a 4.47 xFIP. He’s given up a lot of home runs in his 58.1 innings of work and has been fortunate to post a .221 BABIP against. Leiter has five starts and 16 relief appearances under his belt. He threw seven shutout against the Marlins the other day and will be making his third straight start. It’s really hard to evaluate his season performance because of how he has been used. This will be his third straight start and he started three straight from June 23 to July 4 before going to the minor leagues.
I really don’t know what to expect from Leiter, who has some good starts and also a couple of bad ones. I know what to expect from Dickey. Seasoned bettors feel more comfortable when they can reasonably project an outcome, even if that outcome might not be great. The enemy you know instead of the enemy you don’t, so to speak. In this case, the enemy is variance.
If I had to play this one, I’d likely lean to the Braves, but there are better options out there.
Cleveland at New York (-110); Total: 9.5
We finally saw some LOB% regression hit for Trevor Bauer. Prior to his last start against the Red Sox, Bauer had stranded all of his baserunners. He had given up five solo home runs and those were the only runs that he had allowed. Last time out, the Indians rocked Chris Sale to give him a cushion and Bauer allowed four runs on seven hits in 5.1 innings. Now, Bauer and the Tribe will look for a series victory over Jaime Garcia and the Yankees.
Bauer still leads all qualified starting pitchers in BABIP against at .348, but his ERA has gradually been regressing towards his FIP and xFIP, which is a great site to see. Bauer has 157 strikeouts inn 139.1 innings of work and is just 13 away from setting a career high. It’s easy to overlook the fact that Bauer is just 26 years old because he’s already thrown 691.2 innings in his MLB career. He’s had all sorts of BABIP and sequencing problems this season, but he’s turned in a pretty strong year all things considered.
The AL has not been kind to Jaime Garcia. He pitched okay in his lone start for the Twins, but has a 5.95 ERA with a 6.23 FIP and 5.41 xFIP in four starts with the Yankees. Garcia’s walk rate has ballooned in the AL, which is no surprise with an extra hitter each time through the lineup. There’s also some small sample size noise in there. It’s also worth mentioning that Gary Sanchez is a horrible defensive catcher and Garcia throws a lot of stuff with movement. He threw five wild pitches with the Braves and already has two in four starts with the Yankees. That’s not necessarily predictive or anything, but I think it also speaks to the increased walk rate.
I have concerns about both pitchers here. Some of Bauer’s BABIP can be attributed to bad luck, but some of it is command-related as well. Garcia clearly has issues and the Indians are much better equipped to hit lefties right now with all their injuries to left-handed batters.
I’m looking for runs tonight, so I’d play the first five over. Yankee Stadium plays pretty small, as we know. I’d avoid the bullpens for the total, so look at the first five.
Tampa Bay at Kansas City (-110); Total: 9.5
The Royals may never score again. For the fourth straight game, the Royals got shut out. This time, it was more embarrassing at the hands of Austin Pruitt and the Rays bullpen. Today, the Royals will try to score against Alex Cobb. The Rays, whose slumbering offense awoke for a dozen runs last night, draw Jake Junis.
This is just the second start back off of the DL for Alex Cobb. Cobb has had a couple of significant blow-ups this season, but he’s pitched really well overall. Since the start of June, 23 of the 34 earned runs that Cobb has allowed have come in just three of his 13 starts. That means he has allowed 11 earned runs in the other 10 starts. All three of his bad starts came on the road, with visits to Houston, Baltimore, and Seattle. He only lasted 4.1 innings in his last start in his first outing off of the DL. He had not allowed a run on four hits with one walk and five strikeouts when he got yanked. He did throw 94 pitches, though, so he simply wasn’t efficient. As long as he’s more efficient today, he should be able to work deep into the game. Cobb has been a pretty underrated and undervalued arm this season. He doesn’t miss a lot of bats and it isn’t the sexiest profile, but he induces a lot of weak contact and keeps lefties honest with a pretty good changeup.
Jake Junis has seen a lot of the road between Kansas City and Omaha this season. He’s made nine starts and four relief appearances with KC and 12 starts with the Storm Chasers. He’s been exceptional in Triple-A, with a 2.92/3.12/3.60 pitcher slash and 86 strikeouts in 71 innings of work. With the Royals, he has a 4.68/4.98/5.13 pitcher slash in 57.2 innings. It’s a big leap from the minors to the bigs. Junis has had some good starts, some mediocre starts, and some bad starts. The Rays have good power against righties, so that is a concern, but they also swing and miss a lot and Junis has pretty good raw stuff.
From a side standpoint, I’m not sure which way to go, but with a Royals offense that hasn’t scored in four games and a Rays offense that hasn’t scored much since the start of August, this total looks a half run too high to me. I’d look at the under, which is very dangerous in today’s MLB, as we know.
Detroit at Colorado (-145); Total: 11
The Tigers and Rockies get together at Coors Field. This might actually be a series that the Tigers get excited about because some guys can pad their numbers a little bit in the thin air. When you’re as bad as the Tigers are, that’s about all you have to look forward to is building on personal statistics. This matchup would have been a buy spot on the Tigers with Michael Fulmer on the hill, but I don’t want to go against German Marquez.
To me, Marquez is one of the best-kept secrets in baseball. He’s got some really good numbers for a guy forced to make half of his starts in a launching pad. I really like Michael Fulmer overall, with a plus arsenal that features a double-plus changeup. I’m not sure how he fares in this park, but it’s enough to keep me off of the Rockies.
Los Angeles (-125) at Arizona; Total: 9
Rich Hill and Zack Godley meet in today’s top pitching matchup. Hill is a fade candidate for me today. Everybody knows what happened his last time out. Hill was working on a perfect game into the ninth inning. An error to lead off the ninth turned it into a no-hitter. A walk-off Josh Harrison home run to lead off the 10th turned it into a loss. The Dodgers couldn’t score for Hill and he was denied a line in the history books.
I’m not interested in backing him in this spot. The 37-year-old has battled ongoing blister issues and is sure to have other aches and pains in his aging body. He has gotten an extra day of rest, but still. This isn’t a guy that I want to back going into a hitter’s haven like Chase Field. Plus, Zack Godley is one of my favorite arms this season. Godley has a 3.15 ERA with a 3.27 FIP and xFIP. He’s struck out over a batter per inning and has exceptional peripherals. We’re getting a little bit of value to back the right-hander here because his last few starts haven’t been overly impressive. One thing that does worry me is that Godley has walked 10 batters over his last three starts. I do wonder if the rigors of a full season at the MLB level are starting to get to him. The number of innings (145) isn’t a career high yet, but pitching every fifth day against the best hitters in the world can get tiring.
I’m going to back Godley one more time here and then consider starting to fade him in case there is some fatigue creeping in. Tired pitchers issue walks and start making mistakes in the center of the plate. That could be Godley as we go forward, but I’d rather fade Hill under these circumstances than Godley. Also, the Dodgers have been playing at such a remarkable clip for so long that there’s a lot of built-in regression for them right about now.