Guardians vs Reds Odds
| Cleveland Guardians Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
-105 | 8 -110o / -110u | -1.5 +160 |
| Cincinnati Reds Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
-115 | 8 -110o / -110u | +1.5 -192 |
The Cleveland Guardians and Cincinnati Reds wrap up this season's first installment of the Battle of Ohio on Wednesday at Great American Ball Park. The Guardians took Game 1, 5-3, on Tuesday.
Cleveland leads its division at 43-22. It currently has a 5 1/2-game lead over the Royals and has won three in a row. Cincinnati (32-35) is mired in a battle amongst the bottom-four teams in the NL Central that could decide who'll get the last NL Wild Card spot.
Guardians vs Reds odds for Wednesday have the Reds as -115 moneyline favorites with an over/under of 8 (-110o / -110u). Find my Guardians vs Reds moneyline prediction below.
Cleveland Guardians
Tanner Bibee gets the start for the Guardians tonight. Through 13 starts in his second season, he's posted a 3.73 ERA, 3.91x ERA and 3.44 FIP while striking out 76 batters across 70 innings.
Bibbee has a Stuff+ of 102 this season, which ranks 25th among 72 qualified pitchers this season. He's also 18th in Location+, which gives him an impressive Pitching+ of 107 (sixth-best).
This year, he has a 95th-percentile breaking run value and 97th-percentile off-speed run value. The issue has been that his fastball is first-percentile run value. He has 62nd-percentile fastball velocity, but it's been hit harder than normal.
Bibee has a 69th-percentile whiff rate, 71st-percentile strikeout rate and 72nd-percentile walk rate. He has a 73rd-percentile hard-hit rate but only a 46th-percentile barrel rate.
Bibee also only has a 37.9% ground-ball rate, which ranks in the 25th percentile.
Cleveland’s offense has been better than would've been expected coming into the year. It ranks eighth in wRC+ and 10th in wOBA.
This has been aided by the Guardians' home park, as since renovations were made to Progressive Field in the offseason, this has been a hitter’s park. Progressive Field has a park factor of 103 to this point in the season, which is eighth-highest among full-time stadiums.
It has the second-highest park factor for doubles and fifth-highest for home runs, as once balls get in the air in Cleveland, they've been carrying.
However, the Guardians' home and road splits are largely similar, so even with the amped up home park, they've still been an above average unit on offense.
The Guardians have the fifth-lowest strikeout rate in the league and 10th-best walk rate. They haven’t been hitting the ball extraordinarily hard though.
Cleveland is 30th in hard-hit rate, 27th in barrel rate and 26th in exit velocity.
Cincinnati Reds
Nick Lodolo will take the mound for Cincinnati tonight. He's had a strong start to the year, as he's posted a 2.92 ERA and backed that up with a 3.00 xERA and 3.27 SIERA. The left-hander has struck out 56 hitters in 52.1 innings pitched with just 12 walks.
This puts him in the 76th percentile in whiff rate, 74th percentile in strikeout rate and 81st percentile in walk rate.
Lodolo ranks 36th in Stuff+ among 126 pitchers with 50+ innings pitched this season. He's just 80th in Pitching+, however, due to ranking 71st in Location+.
I’m not too worried about these location numbers, as he hasn’t been walking batters and has avoided hard contact. Lodolo is in the 75th percentile in barrel rate, 53rd percentile in exit velocity and 65th percentile in hard-hit rate.
Despite playing in one of the more offensive-heavy parks in the MLB, the Reds rank just 25th in wRC+ this season and 19th in wOBA. Surprisingly, they're 28th and 23rd in these two categories, respectively, at Great American Ballpark.
The Reds are striking out 24.6% of the time, which is the sixth-highest rate in the league. They do have the seventh-highest walk rate, which results in them having a relatively low amount of balls being put into play.
Cincinnati ranks 28th in hard-hit rate, 24th in barrel rate and 30th in exit velocity. By most metrics this is a bottom-10 offense to this point in the season, despite leading the league in steals.
Guardians vs. Reds
Betting Pick & Prediction
Bibee has good stuff and has been able to locate it well. He isn’t walking many hitters, which has been about the only way the Reds can get anyone on base.
I think that this matchup sets up well for Bibee to have a strong start on the road.
Lodolo has also had an impressive beginning to the season, but he'll have the tougher matchup of these two pitchers tonight. The Guardians rank sixth in both wRC+ and wOBA against lefties this season, so Lodolo won’t have an advantage on them from this side of the platoon.
Cleveland has had the best bullpen in the MLB by a wide margin this season. It has a 2.35 ERA while the next closest team is at 3.03. It also leads the league in xFIP and FIP by a considerable margin, so I don’t believe that this gap is all luck but rather an indication of its skill and how the pen is being deployed.
I’m trusting Bibee and this bullpen tonight to get the victory in what could end up being a lower-scoring affair.
My best bet for this matchup is Cleveland on the moneyline at +100, which I would take to -110.
Pick: Guardians ML (+100) | Play to -110
