Baseball on the 4th of July is one of the best combinations known to man, and today’s full 15-game slate should provide plenty of fireworks. With weather warming up, so are the bats, and today’s featured play is centered around backing the best offense in baseball. Let’s dive in!
Atlanta Braves first 5 innings team total over 2.5 (+100)
Guardians’ rookie pitcher Gavin Williams garnered a ton of respect from the books yesterday with Atlanta’s first 5 inning team total being set at 2.5 with -110 odds to the over. While he pitched well, 3 home runs resulted in 4 Atlanta runs and the F5 TT cashed easily. Now Atlanta faces Shane Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young winner. While Bieber is currently a better pitcher than Williams, the total should have never been set at 2.5 yesterday, and in my opinion, they should not be even money today. Atlanta has surpassed this mark in 13 of their last 16 chances against right-handed starting pitchers. Since June 1 against right-handed pitching the Braves rank 1st in wOBA (.401), ISO (.275), AVG (.306), OPS (.951), hard-hit rate (40.8%), HR/FB% (24.9%), and wRC+ at 151. The top 5 batters in their normal batting order made the all-star team, as did Orlando Arcia at shortstop. Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario have combined for 31 home runs, typically batting 6th and 7th, and Mich ael Harris II is easily the league’s best 9 hitter, winning last season’s NL ROY award and crushing 2 home runs in last night’s game alone.
While the Braves lineup is fearsome, Bieber is less feared than his former self. The once dominant strikeout artist has career-low strikeout numbers across the board. Part of what makes Atlanta so lethal is not only do they have immense power, but they make contact at am alarmingly high rate. Since June 1 they have the league’s lowest K% against RHP while recording the 10th highest zone contact rate. The 9th highest walk rate and league’s lowest CSW% during that span are other marks they hold. Bieber not only is allowing more contact, but the contact he is allowing has been hard. He ranks just 10th percentile in MLB with a 46.7% hard-hit rate and 9th percentile with a 91.4 MPH average exit velocity. His .277 BABIP is even a bit low considering his .302 career average and this season being his worse xBA at .280, a mark ranking 12th percentile. Bieber ranks just 25th percentile in xSLG and 43rd percentile in barrel rate. His 3.48 ERA is shadowed by a 4.69 xERA, 3.98 FIP. 4.01 xFIP, and 4.33 SIERA, all of which are career worse marks.