After failing to complete a sweep of Seattle in the most excruciating fashion possible on Thursday, the Tigers will turn right around and head to San Francisco as they look to keep up the hot play.
The Giants, meanwhile, find themselves just three games out of the wild card after a torrid pace over the last couple of weeks has taken them through the easy part of their schedule. Now, there's suddenly some pressure on San Francisco and Robbie Ray to keep the pedal down and push for the postseason.
With the pitching situation in flux for Detroit, will the Giants run away with this one? Let's get into our Tigers vs Giants prediction for Friday.
Tigers vs. Giants Odds
| Tigers Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Total | Run Line |
+168 | 7.5 -110 / -110 | +1.5 -138 |
| Giants Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Total | Run Line |
-200 | 7.5 -110 / -110 | -1.5 +115 |
Tigers vs Giants Projected Starting Pitchers
| TBD | Stat | Robbie Ray |
|---|---|---|
| W-L | 2-1 | |
| fWAR (FanGraphs) | -0.2 | |
| ERA /xERA | 4.40/3.71 | |
| FIP / xFIP | 6.45/3.50 | |
| WHIP | 1.12 | |
| K-BB% | 25.4% | |
| GB% | 33.3% | |
| Stuff+ | 113 | |
| Location+ | 95 |
Tigers vs Giants Preview
Detroit Tigers Betting Preview: Bullpen Will Carry Bulk of Workload
It's a bit hard to handicap this one for the Tigers because they've got a plethora of ways they can attack this one with their pitching staff. No option is a particularly attractive one, but they can go with either Kenta Maeda or Joey Wentz to eat up the bulk of the innings, or perhaps lean on Brant Hurter as well. Maeda threw 69 pitches on Saturday and would be working on normal rest while Wentz is on six days of rest even if he isn't quite as stretched out.
Detroit will also need a starter for Saturday now that Bryan Sammons was asked to work 4 1/3 innings on Thursday, so it's possible that Maeda is saved to operate as a traditional starter and a combination of Wentz, Hurter and Alex Faedo are tasked with working the first five or six frames here.
That trio should present Detroit with a decent chance to keep this one manageable; Wentz has certainly not been great this season but Hurter and Faedo have produced some good results out of the bullpen in recent weeks amidst some mounting injuries. Maeda, meanwhile, hasn't been very good this season but at least pitches to fly balls which should aid Detroit in this unkind park to hitters.
Speaking of the park, Detroit continues to put the ball on the ground and hunt for singles over extra-base hits, though that hasn't worked out too well of late. It ranks third-worst in wRC+ over the past two weeks with a poor .119 Isolated Power and .211 average, but the good news is that its numbers are nearly identical against lefties and perhaps grade out a bit better given the Tigers are striking out at a much lower clip versus southpaws.
San Francisco Giants Betting Preview: Ray Continues to Surge
The show goes on for Ray, who made his return from Tommy John surgery in stellar fashion a couple of weeks ago against the Dodgers. He would walk two batters and hit two more to force in a run before spinning five no-hit innings with eight punchouts, and while his next two starts were a mixed bag the strikeout numbers remain quite high and the same issues with walks and homers that have plagued Ray for years are still present.
The lefty has now allowed an insane five home runs over his last two starts in just 9 1/3 innings and has walked six in total this year over 14 1/3 with 21 strikeouts. With that, we can expect him to pitch to the three true outcomes in this one against a Tigers team which is striking out at a 23.6% clip over the past two weeks with nothing to show for in the power department and a weak 8.3% walk rate.
He'll also pitch at home for just the second time, and while his first outing didn't go so well against the A's, we did anticipate the lefty finding success as a fly-ball arm in San Francisco when he signed with the club.
Offensively, the Giants continue to impress. Despite trading away Jorge Soler at the deadline and losing leadoff man Jung-Hoo Lee to injury early on this team has found contributions from unlikely sources in Matt Chapman and Tyler Fitzgerald, and now even Michael Conforto and Mark Canha are beginning to hit.
San Francisco sits seventh in wRC+ across the last 14 days with one of the best Isolated Power marks in the game, though its issues with strikeouts have returned with a third strike in 25.4% of plate appearances during this time.
Tigers vs Giants Prediction, Betting Analysis: Advantage for San Francisco
San Francisco should have little holding it back from success at the plate here given the Tigers have no great way to approach this one against one of the hottest offenses in baseball.
The Giants have now won six of their last seven at home, and while runs have been at a premium in these contests this team continues to rack up a plethora of hits with a .255 average at Oracle Park this year and fewer strikeouts to boot.
Tailoring their approach to an unfriendly fly-ball park has worked wonders this year, and the options for Detroit all struggle to limit hits. Maeda carries an unsightly .277 Expected Batting Average into this one, while Hurter has pitched to ground balls down in the minors to pretty poor results.
Ray, meanwhile, is positioned well here against a team which has struggled in plate discipline and is starved for power. It's hard to see Detroit posing the same issues as Oakland did a couple starts ago, which was the lone time we saw the veteran struggle in his three starts back.
Despite missing the starter for Detroit, I have no issues laying the half-run in the first five innings.
Moneyline
The Giants opened up at -200 to win this game, and after moving to -205 early on Friday, the line's begun to correct and has kept moving towards -190. That could be due to the fact that we're tracking sharp action and big money on Detroit to win this one; while just 10% of bets are on Detroit to win, the road side has commanded 33% of the cash.
Run Line (Spread)
The Giants stand 4-1 over the last five games, covering the run line in all four wins as a favorite, but the Tigers have now covered the run line in five straight games, all of which came as underdogs.
Detroit is now a whopping 31-14 to the run line as a road underdog this year while San Francisco stands 16-24 to the run line as a home favorite.
Over/Under
Five of the last six Giants games have gone Over the total, while the Under has cashed in just two of Detroit's last six. We do know that runs are hard to come by in the Bay Area, which is why it's no surprise that the Under is hitting in 52.7% of games in San Francisco and a whipping 61.5% of games where the Giants enter as home favorites.
With that, we've seen only marginal movement towards the Under, and the total remains at the opening number of 7.5 runs. Though there's a ton of action on the Over according to our numbers, we've tracked some sharp action on the Under.
