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Rockies at Diamondbacks Total Runs
Both of these pitchers are struggling so far this year. For the Rockies, it’ll be Jon Gray, who has posted the lowest K rate of his career so far at 12%, quite a drop from last year’s 23.5%. And he’s given up a pretty loud .374 xwOBA. The culprit here could be his fastball that is down nearly two MPH, an xERA of 5.77 and an xBA of .312 also paint a gruesome picture for Gray.
On the other side, it’s Robbie Ray, who, has been in a word, horrifying. An 18.7% walk rate is remarkable and not in a good way. Moving on to his batted ball profile reveals some major trouble including a 15.1% barrel rate and an xwOBA of .409 both numbers being in the bottom 10% or worse. Typically, we don’t like to target the Rockies offense on the road, but I think we have to make an exception here considering how badly Ray is struggling with both his control and command. Also, be sure to keep an eye on the roof situation in Arizona; if it’s open we could see some real fireworks.
Pick: Over 9.5 (-103 DK)
Tigers Total Runs
Jon Lester is clearly in the twilight phase of his career. This year, his swinging strike rate sits at 5.1%, while his 15.2% K rate is easily the lowest of his career that spans over 2500 innings. He’s also allowed a .376 xwOBA this season. Meanwhile, the Tigers have actually been a surprisingly good offense against southpaws this year, as a team they rank 2nd in wOBA at .383 just behind the White Sox. We can’t expect them to be that good as the season continues, but point being, they are certainly capable of putting together runs here against Lester. The FTN projections currently have the Tigers implied total at 4.8 runs.
Pick: Over 4.5 (+118 DK)
Padres vs Mariners Run Line
Taijuan Walker has pitched well so far managing a 4.00 ERA and 1.07 WHIP. All told, he’s probably somewhere around a league-average pitcher considering his strikeout and walk rates of 22.3% and 7.1% respectively. Meanwhile, the Padres have been one of the better offenses in all of baseball this season against RHP with their team wOBA sitting at .348 good for 4th place. They should be able to handle Walker and behind him is a pen that’s not so great. Mariner relievers have combined for a 10% K-BB%, fourth-worst in baseball.
On the opposite side of the spectrum are the Mariners whose team wOBA vs RHP of .305 ranks 24th. They’ll have to face Dinelson Lamet, who’s been phenomenal so far with a 1.89 ERA and 0.84 WHIP. Those ratios won’t stick of course, but Lamet’s strikeout skills are outstanding as his K rate sits at just over 34% good for the top 9% of the league. After thwarting Chris Paddack last night and scoring eight runs look for the Mariners offense to come back down to earth and allow the Padres to win this one in convincing fashion.
Pick: Padres -1.5 (-103 DK)
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Featured image by Justin Paradis (@freshmeatcomm on Twitter)