MLB schedule today has 10 games
Monday has rolled back around and that means a new week’s worth of games gets underway around Major League Baseball. It also means the return of VSiN Daily Baseball Bets, as the podcast can be heard Monday-Friday wherever you get your podcast content.
Ten games are on the betting board for today, with five in the NL, three in the AL, and a couple of interleague matchups, including a pretty good pitching matchup between the Mets and Astros. The other big storyline today is that Jordan Lyles is 0-14 in his 14 starts and he’s a sizable underdog to the Tigers and rookie Reese Olson. Is today the day the Royals are victorious in a Lyles start?
All that and more on today’s card.
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VSiN Daily Baseball Bets will be out shortly.
Here are some thoughts on the June 19 card (odds from DraftKings):
St. Louis Cardinals (-150, 9.5) at Washington Nationals
Every time I look at the betting board, the Cardinals feel overpriced. By this point, this is a team that just doesn’t look to have it this season. There are a lot of internal issues that have leaked over to the field and the offense has even been affected now, posting a 99 wRC+ in the month of June.
Today’s pitching matchup features Jack Flaherty and Josiah Gray. While the Cardinals have struggled to be about a league average group this month, the Nationals are 28th in wOBA at .286 and 28th in wRC+ at 75, so their offense has really gone in the tank. That should help Flaherty, who got rocked last time out with six runs allowed on 10 hits over 4.1 innings with three strikeouts and three walks. He’s back up to a 4.64 ERA after allowing just eight earned runs in his previous six starts.
Gray has built up a big load of regression, as he has a 3.19 ERA with a 4.34 xERA and a 4.77 FIP in his 79 innings of work. He has a low 19.5% K% and a high 10.9% BB%, but has an 84.4% LOB% and has managed to mostly work around the high walk rate and all the balls in play. That said, he’s allowed five homers over his last four starts and 11 runs in 21.1 innings of work, so the regression is seeping in. He has a 4.64 ERA and a 5.95 FIP in that span.
This is a pretty easy game to leave alone. The Nationals are better against lefties than righties, as we know, but haven’t done much against anybody this month. Flaherty is a righty and Gray has all the regression signs, but laying -150 with a Cardinals crew that is only two games better in the win column than the lowly Nats is a big price.
Chicago Cubs (-130, 9) at Pittsburgh Pirates
Osvaldo Bido will get his second crack at the Cubs as he makes his second MLB start. Bido allowed just one run on four hits with six strikeouts against three walks five days ago, but the bullpen failed him in a big way in the 10-6 loss. Bido actually got rather fortunate not to have a worse outing, as he allowed seven hard-hit balls in 10 batted ball events. The Cubs managed four singles on their hard-hit balls, as Bido ran a 50% GB%.
Bido is left-handed and the Cubs are sixth in wOBA against LHP on the season. They have a big 25.5% K%, but Bido isn’t the biggest strikeout guy. He also had major walk rate issues in the minors. He didn’t get many chases in his first start, as the Cubs swung through some pitches in the zone.
Drew Smyly takes the mound for the Cubs, as he brings a 3.59 ERA with a 3.56 xERA and a 4.33 FIP over 77.2 innings of work. Smyly has seen a reversal of fortunes recently, as he has given up 16 runs over his last 22.1 innings of work. He was doing a really good job of limiting hard contact, but that hasn’t happened to the same degree over his last few starts. He’s allowed five homers, including three to the Pirates in his last start.
There were some regression signs in the profile, as Smyly had a 2.60 ERA with a 3.60 FIP in his first 10 starts and had only allowed more than two runs once. His game-by-game spin rates from Baseball Savant look like a toddler drawing on a children’s menu, so I have no idea if there are any injury indicators here or not, but he is a guy that has been injured a lot.
Anyway, no play from me in this one, but I am curious to see how Bido does facing the same team for the second straight time. I’m also curious to see how 2021 first-round pick Henry Davis does for Pittsburgh going forward, as he’ll take over catching duties after slashing .284/.433/.547 in 187 Double-A plate appearances and .286/.432/.514 in 45 PA at Triple-A.
Colorado Rockies at Cincinnati Reds (-165, 10)
Southpaws Austin Gomber and Brandon Williamson are listed for this one at Great American Ball Park on Monday. The Reds have the longest winning streak in the league at eight games and have moved into second place in the NL Central, just a half-game behind the Brewers, who I don’t think are a very good team. Of course, they just swept the Pirates and I had two losers in that series, but still.
The Reds look to be the class of the division right now. But, they still need to find some better pitching. Williamson needs to be better. The rookie southpaw has a 5.40 ERA with a 7.24 xERA and a 6.09 FIP in his 31.2 innings of work over six starts. The Reds may even pull a switcheroo today and use an opener for him. He’s given up at least four runs in four of his six starts and only has 22 strikeouts against 13 walks. He’s given up seven homers, including five in his three home starts.
Williamson only had one strikeout last start against the Royals, which is a pretty big red flag. He’s also allowed a 50% Hard Hit% and 14 barrels, so he’s living in the middle of the zone too much when he’s not throwing uncompetitive pitches. We got lucky with him last time out when we went against Jordan Lyles and the Royals.
Fortunately for Williamson and the Reds, Gomber is worse this season. He’s got a 7.29 ERA with a 7.20 xERA and a 6.34 FIP in his 66.2 innings. Like Williams, he has a low strikeout rate and an elevated walk rate. He’s also allowed 16 home runs over his 14 starts. He just threw a “quality start” against the Red Sox with three runs allowed on six hits, but allowed an average exit velo of 95.4 mph and a 57.9% Hard Hit%, so he fell on the right side of batted ball luck.
Rain is very much in the forecast tonight on a grossly-humid evening along the Ohio River. This one may not even get played. The only thing I could see playing here is the over, but the Rockies have the worst offense in baseball against lefties. Maybe Williamson’s struggles are enough to help them with that, but I have no official play here.
Arizona Diamondbacks at Milwaukee Brewers (-115, 8)
Merrill Kelly and Corbin Burnes make up a solid pitching matchup on a day that doesn’t feature many of them. The aforementioned Brewers are on a bit of a heater with a sweep of the Pirates after losing the previous six games, including getting swept at home by the A’s. Maybe that series says a lot about the Pirates. That’s the assumption I’m going on after learning my lesson twice in that series.
Anyway, Burnes goes today and has a 3.44 ERA with a 3.34 xERA and a 4.15 FIP in 14 starts over 83.2 innings of work. I’ve mentioned this before, but I don’t think he’s being viewed fairly in the markets this season. Just because he isn’t as dominant as previous seasons doesn’t mean that he’s not pitching well. He allowed 10 earned runs in his first two starts of the season and has a 2.66 ERA with a 3.79 FIP in his last 12. If you take out the first two starts, he’s back to over a strikeout per inning pace and has a 33.7% Hard Hit%.
All in all, he’s pitched pretty well I think. His SwStr% is still 13.4% over those last 12 starts, so he’s still getting swings and misses. Maybe he isn’t getting them to the same degree as last season, but he’s being sold short and those first two ugly starts are still hanging on a little bit. He actually has a 28.5% K% in his last seven starts, so the whiffs are coming back.
I’m not sure how many he’ll strike out with the Diamondbacks and their aggressive approach, but that’s where his strong Hard Hit% should come into play.
Kelly is having a really solid season himself. He has a 3.04 ERA with a 4.05 xERA and a 3.84 FIP in his 83 innings over 14 starts. His walk rate sticks out a little bit at 10.3%, but it’s only 7.6% over his last nine starts, as he came out of the World Baseball Classic with some control issues, but corrected them as the season went along. He also has a 28.7% K% over those last nine starts.