MLB schedule today has 6 games
Thursday features about as quiet of a schedule as you can get in Major League Baseball. There are only 12 teams in action across six teams, so 18 of the league’s 30 teams will wait to get back on the field on Friday. Three games are early and three games are late for the May 11th slate, which means that you’ll have a nice distraction from the work day to go along with some action with a nice, cold beverage at night. (Tracking sheet)
Quick note: I try to be really consistent with the timeframe in which the article goes up for the sake of the readers, but with only six games tonight and an early game as part of my plays, I posted the article early today.
Follow me on Twitter, @SkatingTripods, to get the article link right as it goes live.
Tune in for a new episode of VSiN Daily Baseball Bets as soon as we can get it published.
Here are some thoughts on the May 11 card (odds from DraftKings):
New York Mets (-200, 10) at Cincinnati Reds
Matinee baseball on the shores of the Ohio River features the Mets and Reds as the teams wrap up their series with Kodai Senga and Derek Law. Law will be the opener for the Reds, who will use Ben Lively in the bulk reliever role. It would have been way more fun to see Brandon Williamson or Levi Stoudt, but it will be Law and Likely instead, as Luis Cessa was recently DFA’d.
Law has made 17 appearances over 18 innings with a 3.00 ERA and a 5.32 FIP. He’s struck out 18 and walked 11, with three homers allowed and six earned runs on 16 hits. Law has maxed out at 2.1 innings, so this may not be a one-and-done appearance for him, but we’ll have to see how the Reds choose to play it.
Lively, who debuted back in 2017 with the Phillies, has a 4.80 ERA and a 5.03 FIP in his 120 career MLB innings. He has not pitched at the MLB level since 2019 when he had one inning with the Royals. He went to the KBO and was a below average pitcher by foreign player standards and then signed with the Reds for the 2022 season, where he had a 4.09 ERA and a 3.97 FIP in 77 innings at Triple-A.
This season, Lively has allowed seven runs on 19 hits in 27 innings of work with 16 strikeouts against 10 walks. Those aren’t exactly promising numbers, but he has been a little sharper of late with three earned runs allowed on 13 hits in his last 17 innings of work. He’s just not missing many bats and that is not a good thing when pitching in Cincinnati.
Senga is missing a lot of bats, but also missing the strike zone a lot. He’s struck out 36 in 32 innings, but has also walked 22 guys. He’s allowed 12 runs on 25 hits, including five homers. His Hard Hit% is 41%, but that 15.6% BB% is what really stands out and scares me. He’s walked four guys in each of his last four starts and three guys in the other two.
I have no idea what happens in this game, but the Law and Lively combo is how you end up with Senga and his 5.16 FIP as nearly a $2 favorite. He does have a 3.38 ERA, so let’s see if the Regression Monster finds him here.