Tampa Bay Rays at Houston Astros, 8:10 p.m. ET
Rays (Nathan Eovaldi): +218
Astros (Charlie Morton): -245
Over/Under: 7.5
Bet to watch
Tampa Bay over 2.5 runs (-120)
I've been told by my editors to write only article titles with at least five words that start with the same letter. Very eye-catching …
Tonight, the Rays are big pooches to Charlie Morton and the Houston Astros. Nathan Eovaldi is getting his fifth start since returning from Tommy John surgery while Morton is trying to build upon a career-best season.
While I'm not confident enough in Eovaldi to bet on the Rays, I do think Tampa's bats can have some success against Morton and the Astros bullpen.
Lately, I've been making some hybrid-esque bets that use DFS data over at FantasyLabs to make bets and I think I may be onto something. Right now, Morton's recent batted-ball data is rather poor. This has historically led to subpar DFS numbers, and in turn, I believe it should similarly lead to some betting edges.
Morton's exit velocity over that span has been five mph higher than the past calendar year, while batted-ball distance (+15 feet) and hard-hit percentage (+21%) have also been ugly.
Pitchers who have had data that's been at least that bad in those three categories have been terrible DFS options, posting a Plus/Minus of -5.02 on DraftKings and -7.32 on FanDuel.
Essentially, pitchers such as Morton haven't come close to living up to salary-based expectations in DFS. Tampa's lineup isn't anything special, but is three runs too much to ask? It better not be because I don't want to look stupid here.
