MLB schedule today has 10 games
Four day games and six night games are on the Thursday MLB card, as we start bright and early in Cincinnati and wrap up late in Seattle. Six games are in the NL and four games are in the AL, but the interleague machine will fire back up for the holiday weekend. With the early starts, I’ll get this out as quickly as possible.
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Here are some thoughts on the May 25 card (odds from DraftKings):
Miami Marlins (-120, 11) at Colorado Rockies
The Marlins and Rockies wrap up their set at Coors Field with an afternoon clash that could be threatened by some passing showers. Rain chances increase in the evening, so this is one of those spots I’ve talked about before where teams may be racing the rain, especially for a getaway day game.
A couple southpaws do battle here between Braxton Garrett and Kyle Freeland. Garrett is a positive regression candidate with a 4.60 ERA and a 3.74 FIP, plus his 3.38 xFIP suggests he’s gotten a bit unlucky on the home run front. However, he allowed four home runs against the Braves when he gave up 11 runs on 14 hits in 4.1 innings back on May 3. He’s allowed 11 runs total in his other seven starts and one three-inning relief appearance. And, actually, he allowed two runs in that relief effort, so he’s only allowed nine runs in his seven starts aside from that huge disaster against the Braves.
That being said, Garrett has allowed a ton of hard contact, even outside of the Braves start. His Hard Hit% is 48.5%, with the Braves game as an outlier with 15/23 balls classifying as “hard hit”. If we take out that start, he’s down to 49/109, which is still very much on the high side at 45%. His .349 BABIP is deserved, but the hard contact has only really gotten him once.
He’s allowed one run on four hits in his last 11.1 innings with 16 strikeouts, so it seems like he figured out whatever was wrong with that Atlanta start and then a rough follow-up against the Diamondbacks. He’s a bit of a wild card at Coors, but it is worth noting that his offense is way better against lefties than the Rockies are.
The Marlins are ninth in wOBA at .339, while the Rockies, aided by Coors Field in some of these games, are 28th at .290. Even at home, the Rockies are 23rd with a .308 wOBA against LHP. That doesn’t seem to bode well for Freeland, who has a 3.88 ERA with a 4.12 xERA, and a 4.48 FIP.
Freeland has actually been way better at home than on the road thus far. He only has 11 strikeouts in 21 road innings and has allowed a .293/.330/.500 slash with a .354 wOBA compared to 27 strikeouts in 32.1 innings at home with a .246/.287/.377 slash and a .291 wOBA against. That even includes a blow-up against the Pirates when he allowed nine runs on eight hits in 2.2 innings on April 17.
Freeland just allowed eight runs on nine hits over two innings against the Rangers, so he had another big blow-up. It was his second start in the last three with 11 hard-hit balls and a Hard Hit% of at least 55%, so his command isn’t super sharp right now. Per usual, though, it is really hard to trust a Marlins lineup averaging just over 3.5 runs per game and you never quite know with road pitchers in this environment.
San Diego Padres (-190, 9.5) at Washington Nationals
Another tantalizing price for the Nationals against a lefty, but this one is a lot better than Ryan Weathers. This one is Blake Snell and he’s laying a hefty price tag against Jake Irvin in the series finale. I’m definitely upset with myself for leaving the Nats off yesterday, as that was a play I absolutely should have made. I liked Stroman and the Cubs as well and left that one off the card. Frustrating day.
Anyway, back to this one, Snell has been the losing pitcher in six of his nine starts with a 5.40 ERA, 5.94 xERA, and a 5.54 FIP in 45 innings of work. His K% is down from 32% to 23.8% and his BB% is up from 9.5% to 13.4%. He’s also given up nine homers in those 45 innings after allowing just 11 homers in 128 innings last season. His Barrel% is up over 5% from last season. Everything seems to have gone in the wrong direction for him.
What’s crazy is that he hadn’t allowed more than three runs in any start except one prior to his last outing when he allowed six runs on five hits in four innings to the Red Sox. It was his fifth start of the season with a Hard Hit% of 50% or higher and he’s allowed a 43.3% mark for the season.
This is a big total because the shine has come off of Irvin very quickly. After allowing one run on six hits in his first 10.2 innings as a big leaguer, he’s allowed 12 runs on 11 hits in his last 7.1 innings of work. Irvin has 15 strikeouts over 18 innings with 12 walks and has allowed a 45.3% Hard Hit% with an 11.3% Barrel%. The Tigers just crushed him for a 69.2% HH% and four barrels last time out.
In four starts, Irvin has a 4.4% SwStr%, so he’s just not missing any bats and has an O-SwIng% under 15% in three of his four starts, so guys are just teeing off. In his last two starts, he hasn’t had a single swing and miss on a pitch in the strike zone. He has a 5.50 ERA, but a 6.87 xERA with all the hard contact and the walks. For all of the problems that the Padres have had offensively, drawing walks has not been one of them, as they have a 12% BB% on the season against righties.
What they also have is a .255 BABIP against righties, so they have just a .297 wOBA and an 89 wRC+. They’ve pulled the ball at a top-10 rate and have a top-10 rate of Soft% contact as defined by Statcast, so they’ve hit the ball pretty well against righties to have such poor numbers.
This is a big total, but I think we get runs in this game. The Padres should be able to jump on a guy like Irvin who isn’t adjusting to big league hitters and the Nationals rank seventh in wOBA at .346 against lefties. They have the lowest K% in the league against lefties and strikeouts are really the only thing that Snell has to fall back on at this point.
Rather than mess with the bullpens, as the Padres have a 1.41 ERA and a 2.89 FIP in the last 14 days and the Nationals have been respectable, I’ll just go with the 1st 5 Over 5. As always, shop around.
Pick: 1st 5 Over 5 (-110)
Philadelphia Phillies at Atlanta Braves (-110, 9.5)
Aaron Nola and Dylan Dodd fire up a four-game set between the Phillies and Braves with a virtual coin flip in the betting market. This will be Dodd’s first MLB start since May 4 and just his third since April 9. He made the Opening Day roster and allowed seven runs on 10 hits in his second start and got sent to Triple-A Gwinnett. He’s back now after throwing four shutout innings in his last outing, but he had allowed 12 runs on 16 hits, including five homers, in his two starts prior to that.
Fortunately for Dodd, this is the weaker side of the split for the Phillies, who rank 25th in wOBA at .296 against lefties. They only have a 5.5% BB% to go with a 25.6% K%, so they haven’t walked enough and have struck out way too much. Their 83 wRC+ means that they are 17% below league average against lefties. That said, Dodd is barely a MLB left-hander and he only has seven strikeouts out of 70 batters at the big league level.
Nola heads into this start in the midst of a really weird season. He has a 4.31 ERA with a 3.66 xERA, and a 3.92 FIP. He’s got a 65.1% LOB%, which is reminiscent of his 2021 season when he had a 4.63 ERA, but a 3.35 xERA and a 3.37 FIP. The weird thing about this season is that the LOB% is his fault because his K% is down from 29.1% last season to 21.3% this season.
He did strike out 10 Cubs last time out, so he found the swing and miss button, but I’m pretty impressed with his 34.6% Hard Hit% when the quality of his stuff is down a little. He had a 3.16% Hard Hit% last season, which was his best mark since 2018.
As I’ve continued to report, the Braves are a below average offense against righties this season, but Nola isn’t quite himself. I also have no idea what Dodd brings to the table here. I think this is a pretty easy pass.
New York Mets at Chicago Cubs (-115, 8.5)
Here’s a name we haven’t heard in a while: Kyle Hendricks. Hendricks will make his first MLB start since July 5 of last season. He had a 4.80 ERA with a 4.82 FIP last season while pitching hurt and was limited to just 84.1 innings and 16 starts. It seemed like he was pitching hurt in 2021 as well, when years of regression signs all came to a head and he had a 4.77 ERA with a 4.95 xERA and a 4.89 FIP.
From 2015-20, he was one of the game’s most reliable pitchers with a 3.17 ERA and a 3.55 FIP. He was billed as having some of the best command in baseball, as he had 835 strikeouts against 211 walks with only 100 homers allowed in 967 innings. Now 33, and coming off of two atrocious years, I genuinely don’t know what to expect from him. In five rehab starts, he allowed 13 runs on 21 hits, but gave up 10 of those runs in his first two starts. Once he settled in, he allowed three runs on 13 hits over 16 innings with 14 strikeouts against just two walks.
Hendricks has always been a master at limiting hard contact with a 30.7% Hard Hit% and a 5.2% Barrel%. His last two seasons, he had a 33% HH% and a 38.8% HH% with an 8.4% Barrel % and a 9.9% Barrel%. One interesting comment from Hendricks’s post-game interview following his last rehab start was that he mentioned being a bit rattled by the pitch clock in his first two starts, even as a guy who works quickly. His last minor league starts came in 2017 and MLB hadn’t had the pitch clock up until this year, so I think it makes sense that he would struggle.
It’s tough to watch Carlos Carrasco these days. Cookie has an 8.68 ERA with a 6.97 FIP and just allowed five runs on five hits to a largely hapless Cleveland offense. He’s given up 18 runs in 18.2 innings this season and only has 11 strikeouts against 10 walks. Perhaps he’ll get a little stronger here and he did look good in his two rehab outings, but the velocity is down, the stuff isn’t nearly as sharp, and the margin for error just isn’t there.
Carrasco draws a big upgrade here, as the Guardians are about the worst offense in every category and the Cubs are 10th in wOBA against righties. They do have a bit of a heightened K%, but Carrasco isn’t the swing and miss guy that he once was, as injuries continue to play a big part.
I like the Cubs today. Stroman’s masterful eight innings gave everybody but closer Mark Leiter Jr. a day off and the pen has been used sparingly over the last few days. Hendricks is the last tie to the World Series team of 2016, so I’d expect a pretty amped up crowd as well. This is a good team that is better than its record and that should really keep showing through.
Pick: Cubs -115
San Francisco Giants (-125, 9) at Milwaukee Brewers
This game is a bit of a mess, as we’ve got Logan Webb pushed back to Saturday, which means Scott Alexander gets the opener duties today, followed by either Tristan Beck or Jakob Junis. Sean Manaea is back in the rotation and slated to pitch Tuesday, so this is a fluid situation. Alexander gets the start and will pitch for the third time in four days.