There's another 15 games on Wednesday's MLB slate, including a handful of afternoon games. What better way to spend your work day than laying down some cold, hard cash and sweating out some baseball?
There are six games before the sun goes down, and our analysts have picks for three of them, including Phillies vs. Reds, Orioles vs. Blue Jays and Padres vs. Marlins.
Here are our three best bets from Wednesday afternoon's Major League Baseball slate.
MLB Odds & Picks
Phillies vs. Reds
DJ James: Ranger Suárez does not necessarily dazzle on the bump — he just gets the job done. He ranks in the bottom half of the league in both walk rate and strikeout rate. He does hold opponents to a 56.1% ground-ball rate, though.
This should shine against a team like the Reds, who usually hit the ball in the air. Suárez will essentially negate the only positive aspect of the Reds’ offense against lefties.
Amongst active Reds, only Dominic Solano and Kyle Farmer boast a .340+ xwOBA. Outside of Alejo Lopez, the numbers drop significantly for the rest of the batting order. This is yet another reason why Suárez should have a successful outing — he will get the bottom half of the order out easily.
The Phillies’ bullpen has Corey Knebel on the injured list, but the rest of the group is healthy. Sam Coonrod has not pitched this season, but otherwise, Brad Hand is the only Philly reliever above a 4.00 xFIP. They should mow down the bottom half of the Cincinnati order.
Overall, the under for the Reds’ team total is the best play in this game, especially with how well the Philly bullpen has performed lately. The same can be said about Suárez.
Take the Reds under from 4 (-130), and play it to 3.5 (-125).
Orioles vs. Blue Jays
Brad Cunningham: Austin Voth is a positive regression candidate, as his actual ERA is 5.34, with his xERA being 4.25, but this is a terrible matchup for him. For starters, the Blue Jays are the third best team in MLB against right-handed pitching in terms of both wOBA and wRC+. Additionally, Voth has a three pitch arsenal of fastball, curveball and cutter, which the Blue Jays lineup has a +27.2 run value against.
Ross Stripling has been fine, but not overly impressive. His xERA is sitting at 3.75, his xFIP is 3.70 and he’s hardly walking anybody with a BB% of 4.5%, which is fantastic. However, he’s allowing a .260 xBA (22nd percentile), a barrel rate of 8.4% (30th percentile), and a whiff rate of 21.5% (26th percentile), per Baseball Savant.
The Orioles are fairly average versus right-handed pitching, but over the past 30 days, Baltimore has been hot at the plate, as it has the seventh best wOBA and it actually tied with Toronto at 110 wRC+.
I have the total of the first five innings at 5.7, so I like the value on over 4.5 runs at -122 and would play it up to -135.
Padres vs. Marlins
Collin Whitchurch: We've ridden the Marlins as undervalued underdogs the last two nights and it's paid off, but today I think Pablo Lopez is getting a little too much respect against Mike Clevinger.
Lopez looked like a Cy Young candidate through the first month and a half of the season, but he's been entirely pedestrian ever since. Through his first 10 starts, Lopez had a 1.83 ERA. In his 13 starts since, it's 4.99.
There have been good starts mixed in there, including an 11-strikeout performance against the listless Reds and 5 2/3 innings with two runs allowed against the behemoth Braves last time out, but I'm generally looking to fade Lopez when the number looks right.
Mike Clevinger has been tough to peg in his first season back from injury. His ERA (3.47) is a bit better than his expected indicators (3.82 xERA), but while he's not missing bats like he did in the past, his walks are down and he's limiting hard contact.
He's also facing an offense that has been among the worst in baseball. Miami's 91 wRC+ is tied for fifth worst over the course of the full season, and since the start of July the Marlins' 73 wRC+ is tied with the Tigers for second-worst in the majors, ahead of only the Angels.
The Marlins got the better of San Diego in the first two games of this series behind Cy Young frontrunner Sandy Alcantara and young phenom Edward Cabrera. The pitching mismatch is lopsided in San Diego's direction today, however.
I'd bet the Padres on the moneyline to -150.
