A first five inning angle for Diamondbacks-Cardinals. A moneyline bet for Giants-Dodgers.
Find out why those are two of our analysts' favorite MLB picks for Monday's slate.
MLB Odds & Picks
Diamondbacks at Cardinals
Kenny Ducey: If you've attempted to bet on the Diamondbacks all season long, you would know the absolute best time to target them is against left-handed pitching. Well, not only do they get a lefty on Monday, but it's our good friend Wade LeBlanc.
The 36-year-old is pumping an 87-mph sinker these days, and trifling hitters with his 85-mph cutter. Okay, I’m kidding. LeBlanc carries a 6.75 ERA into this start, and for a guy who tries to pitch to contact with his sinker, a 47.9% hard-hit rate and .413 xwOBA on contact is alarming.
Despite all the losses that have piled up over the last week, the Diamondbacks have still held on to a top-10 ranking in wRC+ to lefties. They’re above-average in this department, and over the past week have actually had an above-average offense — they broke out of their 24-game losing streak with a massive 10-1 win over the Padres and have scored 19 runs over their last three games.
This is not an offense you want to run into, and it should provide Jake Faria some run support. Speaking of, this will officially be the former Rays starter's second chance in the bigs, getting his first nod since 2018. I actually used to think this guy was pretty good; his splitter has always been a difficult pitch to hit with some incredible movement and, at least early on in his career, he was inducing plenty of soft contact.
Faria’s been good out of the 'pen this year, striking out a career-best 29.4% of hitters, and he should get the better of a slumping Cardinals offense — or do well enough to let the Arizona bats shine. I love the Snakes.
Giants at Dodgers
Brad Cunningham: Anthony DeSclafani has been awesome in his first season for the Giants, putting up a 3.36 xERA and a .198 batting average against him.
The two pitches DeSclafani has had the most success with are his slider and sinker, as opponents are hitting under .180 and have a wOBA below .250 against both pitches. While the Dodgers crush right-handed pitching, they haven’t been that great against sliders, as they rank 23rd in the league with -5.9 weighted slider runs and they’ll be seeing a heavy dose of them because DeSclafani goes to his slider over 34% of the time
Trevor Bauer has been pretty good this season, but he’s not where he was last season in Cincinnati. He has a 3.70 xFIP, his walk and home run per nine rates are up, and his strikeout rate is down.
The two pitches Bauer is struggling with the most are his cutter and his fastball, as his cutter is allowing a .393 wOBA and his fastball is allowing a .333 xwOBA. Well, guess which two pitches the Giants have had the most success against this season? That's right, they're second against fastballs and third against curveballs.
So, I like the Giants to pull off the upset tonight and would play it down to +150.
