MLB Odds & Picks for Giants vs. Padres: Should This Matchup Really Be a Pick’Em?

Giants vs. Padres Odds

A star-studded pitching matchup will make it to national television on Saturday night when the Giants visit the Padres.

San Diego has taken the first two games of the series and will be out for the series victory here, though this one sits around a pick 'em.

With the total also incredibly low, what are we to do here?

Let's dive into this one.

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Giants' Rodon Looking to Jump Back Into Form

Let's start with the offense so we can get the bad stuff out of the way early.

San Francisco is 28th in wRC+ over the last two weeks and while this team has not scored runs, it has at least posted a spicy 11.3% walk rate. With that said, the Giants are striking out a ton (24.7% punch-out rate) and doing nothing in the power department (.134 ISO).

Carlos Rodon will be the one to get the ball for San Francisco, and he's been absolutely excellent this season. He's coming off of a rocky start against Arizona, which saw him yield four runs over five innings, but he did allow just five hits and two walks with seven strikeouts.

Prior to that, Rodon had been rock solid. He owns an excellent 2.83 xERA — with a beefy 30.4% strikeout rate — and many great performances on his ledger. One big-time outing came against these same Padres back in May, when he allowed just two runs on five hits over six innings with six punch-outs.

His fastball and slider have been excellent, the latter in particular.

Bad Matchup for Padres?

The Padres' offense has also been a huge issue of late. In the last two weeks they're 27th in Hard Hit Rate and 26th in wRC+. A lack of run production is nothing new for San Diego, though, considering it's posted a lackluster 99 wRC+ and owns the 25th-ranked .134 ISO this season.

There's been a power outage without Fernando Tatis Jr. in the lineup.

On top of that, this isn't a particularly appealing matchup. Not only is Rodon very good, San Diego has a pretty average .725 OPS against lefties and has been awful against fastballs, ranking 23rd in runs per 100 pitches.

While the Padres are one of the best teams in the league against sliders, Rodon's fastball usage continues to grow.

Then, there's Yu Darvish. The righty's fastball velocity is totally gone at 35 and with that, his strikeout rate has cratered all the way to 22.4%. He's allowed a pretty crummy .379 xwOBA on contact and a bad 38.1% Hard Hit Rate.

In his one outing against the Giants this year, he allowed nine earned runs and didn't make it out of the second inning.

Giants-Padres Pick

I will continue to attest that Darvish is not a very good pitcher in his old age. His fastball has no bite anymore and his strikeout numbers — which made him elite once upon a time — are way down.

San Francisco has a slight advantage offensively and a large advantage in the pitching matchup. Rodon has been excellent all year and should keep things under control against a limping Padres offense.

I would absolutely not make this one a pick 'em, and I see value in the over.

Pick: Giants -108