MLB schedule today has 15 games
A fully-loaded Friday is on the betting board as all 30 teams are back in action after a little bit of a lighter Thursday slate. New series begin and four-game series continue, as we’ll see five games in the NL, five games in the AL, and five interleague matchups to wrap up the work week.
After writing about the decrease in HR/FB% in the month of June, this past week provided a nice, little boost to offense, as the HR/FB% was 12.7%, back in line with what we saw in the month of May. Overall, the teams collectively batted .253/.324/.425 with a .326 wOBA from Friday-Thursday, so it was a good week for offense, but June is still slightly lagging behind the month of May.
It’s getting warmer and a little more humid, so I’ll be keeping an eye on the numbers, specifically the home run numbers, as we go forward.
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VSiN Daily Baseball Bets will be out shortly.
Here are some thoughts on the June 16 card (odds from DraftKings):
Miami Marlins (-155, 8.5) at Washington Nationals
Sandy Alcantara is a big favorite on today’s card against Trevor Williams and the Nationals. The Marlins ace has not been himself this season with a 4.75 ERA, 4.11 xERA, and a 3.78 FIP, but obviously his advanced metrics show that there is still a lot of hope for his season as a whole. His K% is down almost 3% from last season and his BB% is up 2.2%, but the biggest issue for him is that his LOB% is just 60.7%, so he’s had problems with stranding runners.
He gave up one run on three hits last time out against the White Sox, so the stat line was good, but he also allowed his second-highest average exit velo of the season at 93.6 mph and tied his second-highest Hard Hit% against, so it wasn’t as great of a start as it looked. He also allowed three barrels for the second time this season.
Williams has a 4.11 ERA with a 5.21 xERA and a 5.32 FIP in his 65.2 innings of work, so his advanced metrics paint a negative picture, but that isn’t terribly shocking with a low K% and a high HR rate. Williams has a 14.4% HR/FB%, the second-highest of his career in a non-COVID season. He’s given up 13 long balls over 13 starts and seven in his last five outings. He’s only allowed 30 earned runs over his 65.2 innings, but he did give up six unearned runs three starts ago against the Dodgers in what was a pretty subpar outing.
I think this price is too high for Alcantara with the way that he’s pitching, but I’m not eager to back the Nationals here, given that they’re way better against lefties and Alcantara is not one.
St. Louis Cardinals (-115, 9) at New York Mets
Most of the market has this game lined with the Cardinals as a slight favorite over the Mets as this weekend set gets underway. It will be Miles Mikolas for the Redbirds and Tylor Megill for the Metropolitans and Megill is having a really rough season. He’s got a 5.14 ERA with a 5.85 xERA and a 5.18 FIP over his 63 innings pitched. He’s walked way too many guys with a 12.1% BB% and has not missed nearly enough bats with just a 16.9% K%.
Megill has actually done a pretty good job limiting hard contact, but we will see that from guys who walk a lot of batters because they can sometimes be effectively wild and cause hitters to be off-balance, especially when trying to protect or when making contact with a bad pitch. His 36.9% HH% is solid and so is his 7.9% Barrel%, but the walks and lack of strikeouts are a lot to ignore.
It also seems like he may be going in the wrong direction, as he has allowed 22 runs in his last four starts, including nine runs last time out to the Pirates over just 3.2 innings. That’s the opposite of Mikolas, who did give up five runs last time out to the Reds, but had allowed just 15 earned runs over his previous 10 starts. His season got off to a rough start because of the WBC, but he settled in really nicely and had a 2.24 ERA with a 3.40 FIP in that span before some regression signs caught up with him against the Reds.
No interest in this game, though, as the Cardinals seem rather disengaged and the Mets are a really big disappointment and are now taking the field without Pete Alonso on a daily basis.
Colorado Rockies at Atlanta Braves (-240, 10.5)
Yesterday’s game played out as expected, as the Braves jumped all over southpaw Kyle Freeland and AJ Smith-Shawver ran into some bumps in the road, but pitch well enough to get his first MLB win. Today’s game could also have the potential for runs, as the Rockies send out Dinelson Lamet and the Braves counter with Jared Shuster.
Lamet’s foray into starting has not gone well at all. The former starter turned reliever turned starter has allowed 11 runs in 11 innings since moving back into the rotation. His last start was his best of the bunch with three runs (two earned) on six hits over five innings of work. He struck out five and walked three out of 23 batters faced, but for the third straight outing, allowed a ton of hard contact.
In three starts, Lamet has a 52.6% Hard Hit% against and just an 8.2% SwStr%. Those are the two areas to look at in any Braves game – can they hit the ball hard and will they swing and miss a lot? I will once again note that this offense is more like league average against righties and way better against lefties, so I don’t like this matchup quite as much, but it should be another good one for the best offense in baseball this month.
The Rockies get Shuster, who will pitch on regular rest here. He went from May 31 to June 10 without an appearance because the Braves ended up not needing him, but he’s got the green light here. He’s got a 5.05 ERA with a 4.51 FIP in his 35.2 innings of work. He only has 21 strikeouts against 19 walks and has allowed 20 runs on 30 hits. He’s allowed a good bit of hard contact with a 41.4% Hard Hit% as well.
I don’t have a bet here, though. I do think a lot of runs are likely yet again, but the Braves don’t project quite the same against righties, even bad ones like Lamet.
Pittsburgh Pirates at Milwaukee Brewers (-115, 9)
The Brewers have dropped six in a row and the Pirates have lost three in a row as we look at this battle for supremacy in the NL Central. Milwaukee is just a half-game back and the Reds are just one game back as this series gets underway. The Pirates are also just one game over .500, so we’ll see what transpires here.
It will be Dick Mountain on the bump for the Buccos, as Rich Hill draws a Brewers lineup that has been simply awful against left-handed pitching this season. Julio Teheran gets the call for Milwaukee. Teheran has actually provided quite a lift for this beleaguered rotation, as Milwaukee has dealt with a lot of injuries to starting pitchers thus far. He’s got a 1.48 ERA with a 3.47 xERA and a 3.53 FIP in his 24.1 innings of work. He is running an 89.6% LOB% with a 17.8% K% and just a .265 BABIP against, so I think you know where I’m going with this.
It is impressive that Teheran has only allowed four earned runs in his four starts, but this is far from his true talent level. He was scuffling badly in Triple-A before the Brewers acquired him, although pitching in the PCL is like pitching on the moon. Still, this is a lot of sequencing luck for a guy who doesn’t miss many bats.
Hill has a 4.23 ERA with a 5.45 xERA and a 4.40 FIP over his 72.1 innings of work. After a couple of rough outings on May 23 and 29, he’s made some nice adjustments and allowed just three runs on 11 hits in his last 13.2 innings. The old man did the same thing back in April, as he had a couple of rocky starts to begin the season with five homers allowed in his first two starts and then went on a really nice run for four starts. It looks like he’s doing a similar thing here.
The Brewers have had one of the league’s worst offenses for the better part of six weeks at this point and rank 29th in wOBA against lefties at .286. Only Colorado is worse at .284. The Brewers also have a 28.5% K% in this split, so Hill should be able to work ahead in the count and generate some swings and misses.
The Pirates are scuffling a bit through June, but do rank ninth in wOBA this month, while the Brewers rank 23rd. Milwaukee continues to strike out way too much. Also, by virtue of losing some games recently, the top guys in Pittsburgh’s bullpen like David Bednar and Dauri Moreta have been able to get caught up a bit from a rest standpoint.
The Pirates at a dog price are a good look for today.
Pick: Pirates -105
San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers (-145, 8.5)
I don’t know how many people have noticed, but the Giants have actually been one of the league’s top teams over the last 40 or so games. They are 25-16 and have really turned it up offensively, as well as on the pitching side. That isn’t a huge surprise because Farhan Zaidi runs a really good organization, but the Giants are playing at a high level right now and have put themselves in the NL Wild Card discussion.
They’ll look to keep it rolling with opener John Brebbia on the bump today. Brebbia has had a fine season with a 3.25 ERA, 2.93 xERA, and a 2.66 FIP in his 27.2 innings of work. In eight innings as a starter, he’s allowed just one run on six hits, so this has been a good role for him as well. It looks like Sean Manaea will follow, which would’ve been a better thing a few weeks ago when the Dodgers were struggling against southpaws, but they’re now a top-five offense in that split.
Still, Manaea has been pitching better of late. He just threw 4.1 no-hit innings in relief against the Cubs six days ago on the heels of a bit of a rough outing in Colorado. Prior to that, he hadn’t allowed an earned run in three straight appearances.
The Dodgers will use Emmet Sheehan to make his MLB debut. The 6-foot-5 right-hander is 23 years old and will make the leap directly from Double-A, where he posted a 1.86 ERA with a 3.21 FIP in his 53.1 innings of work. Sheehan struck out 88 batters over his 10 starts and two relief appearances. He also walked 23 guys. He came into the season as the No. 17 prospect in the organization, as he was mostly viewed as a reliever, but the Boston College product seems to be doing quite well as a starter.
Sheehan’s projection from Eric Longenhagen as FanGraphs is to be a multi-inning relief weapon, but he gets a crack here as a starter. We’ll see how he does against a really good Giants lineup, but he’s a big guy with pretty good home run prevention numbers, so it might not be a bad fit.
New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox (-120, 9.5)
Domingo German and Tanner Houck get us started in the AL, as we’ll see if German can build off another solid start last time out. He just faced the Red Sox and went six innings with just a solo homer allowed and a 5/2 K/BB ratio. German has only allowed three home runs over his last seven starts, which really is the key for him. In starts where he has allowed multiple homers, he has yielded 14 of the 28 runs he given up this season. That only accounts for three of his 12 starts.
He has a 3.49 ERA with a 4.38 FIP, but has a 2.20 ERA with a 3.74 FIP in his 41 innings pitched since the start of May. He does have a foreign substance suspension in that mix as well, but he’s now three starts removed from that and has allowed six runs on 17 hits in his 19 innings pitched over that span.
Houck’s advanced metrics paint a prettier picture than what his more traditional numbers show. He has a 5.23 ERA with a 3.86 xERA and a 4.30 FIP in his 63.2 innings of work. The right-hander is also running it back against the Yankees after giving up two runs on three hits over six innings at Yankee Stadium six days ago. He allowed two solo homers in that start.
This line seems reasonable, although I think German has been more consistent than Houck. The Red Sox aren’t missing a huge piece like Aaron Judge, though, so that should help them. I may have underestimated how the Red Sox pen has performed lately, as they do lead MLB in fWAR over the last 14 days, so I guess I fell victim to a bit of recency in that Rockies series.
Toronto Blue Jays (-145, 9) at Texas Rangers
This is a really fascinating line because it sure seems like a big number for the Blue Jays on the road against the Rangers. What Texas has done this season has been thoroughly impressive, but there may be some modest corrections happening with the Rangers. They went 2-for-10 with RISP in yesterday’s loss to the Angels and have been falling a bit in that category of late. That’s not to say this isn’t a good offense, but there were some unsustainable developments that are regressing to the mean a bit.
However, while that may be going on, this line is all about the difference between Kevin Gausman and Martin Perez. And right now, it is a huge difference. Gausman has a 3.12 ERA with a 3.47 xERA and a 2.58 FIP in his 86.2 innings of work. The right-hander has allowed a .338 BABIP as a byproduct of some hard contact, but he also has a ridiculously good 33.2% K% that has allowed him to work out of any jams that pop up.
He was unable to do that last time out against the Twins and actually struggled badly, allowing six runs on seven hits in 4.2 innings. That seemed to be a really good matchup on paper since the Twins strike out a lot, but Gausman walked four and only struck out four out of the 23 batters faced. He’s allowed a 50% or higher Hard Hit% in each of his last three starts, so it isn’t a surprise that one of those blow-ups took place.
The crazy thing about Gausman is that he’s allowed six or more runs three times in 14 starts and those three outings account for 22 of the 35 runs he’s given up. He has five starts with at least six innings and zero runs allowed, so he’s been really good way more often than he’s been really bad. Let’s see if he bounces back here.
As far as Perez goes, the southpaw has a 4.67 ERA with a 5.14 xERA and a 4.91 FIP in his 71.1 innings of work. His K% is down, his HR rate is up, back towards where it was in 2020 and 2021, and his blow-ups have been way more frequent recently. Since May 7, Perez has a 6.69 ERA with a 5.64 FIP in his 37.2 innings pitched. He’s given up at least four runs in four of those starts, including two starts with seven runs allowed.
It may seem like a big number, but it seems fair to me. If Gausman didn’t have so many strikeouts, I’d consider the over here, but he may have a big bounce back effort in him. His spin rates and velocity look fine, so I don’t see any injury indicators to worry about.
Los Angeles Angels (-145, 9.5) at Kansas City Royals
The Royals will send Brady Singer out against the Angels, who had to really enjoy their flight from Dallas to KC. That was a huge series win yesterday over the Rangers and it sure looks like Shohei Ohtani is just fine after a good start and another big two-run blast. His velo was back up, so it looked to just be a minor hiccup and one that ultimately cost us a bet.
Today’s game against Singer should be another chance for the offense to show out, as the KC righty has had a brutal season. He enters with a 6.58 ERA, as he’s got a 61% LOB% and a .342 BABIP against. Normally I’d point towards bad luck, but he’s made his own bad luck with a 55.1% Hard Hit% that is showing mild signs of slowing down, but he has just allowed way too much hard contact on the season.