Tigers vs Braves Monday Odds | Underdog Moneyline Prediction
Photo by Duane Burleson/Getty Images. Pictured: Reese Olson (Tigers)
Tigers vs Braves Monday Odds | Underdog Moneyline Prediction
| Detroit Tigers Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
+180 | 8 -110o / -110u | +1.5 -115 |
| Atlanta Braves Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
-225 | 8 -110o / -110u | -1.5 -105 |
The Braves are beginning to find it again, taking three of their last four to enter the third week of June seven games over .500. They'll have a tough part of their schedule coming up to close out the month, so taking this mid-week series against the Tigers seems to be imperative.
Detroit, meanwhile, is 11 games out of first place in the AL Central, but it finds itself planted in the middle of a logjam in the AL Wild Card standings. Wins have been hard to come by of late, but this offense seems to be getting a bit better and could have something to say this week in Atlanta.
Reese Olson will toe the slab for the visitors, seeking a bounce-back performance amidst an awful month of June. He'll be tasked with out-dueling one of the NL Cy Young Award favorites in Max Fried.
Can Detroit pull off an upset on Monday? Let's examine Tigers vs Braves odds — which have the Braves as -225 moneyline favorites — and make a moneyline prediction for this interleague series opener at Truist Park.
Detroit Tigers
The Tigers are slowly working their way up to relevance, despite a smattering of wins over the last couple of weeks.
They've posted a 108 wRC+ over the last week, and while one big day against Justin Verlander and the Astros may be inflating that number, this lineup has still been roughly league average in the last two weeks of play.
Detroit is still struggling when it comes to limiting strikeouts, but its Isolated Power remains around the middle of the league for the year, and it's hit a handsome .256 over the last week of play.
It's hard to read too far into the poor splits against left-handers, which come in a smaller sample size. I'm much more focused on the good work that Detroit has done of late — particularly in what could be a favorable matchup against Fried.
Speaking of pitching matchups, Olson should have a shot at redemption against Atlanta. He's had a month to forget (allowing 17 earned runs on 28 hits over 14 2/3 innings), but he's continued to limit walks and home runs, and he's still one of the top ground-ball starters in the American League at 52.8% for the season.
Detroit's infield defense may be among the worst in baseball, but the good news is that the Braves rank 17th in OPS to ground-ball pitchers this season and have hit just .238 in the split — a pretty troubling number.
And both pale in comparison to their performance against fly-ball arms.
Atlanta Braves
Atlanta's offense continues to be puzzling. Aside from Marcell Ozuna, nobody is really hitting at all.
Even with some better swings out of Matt Olson, the disappointing year out of Austin Riley and the loss of Ronald Acuna, Jr., Atlanta has done well to kill any sort of buzz surrounding it.
It's unrecognizable from the ridiculous offense we saw a season ago, with even Travis d'Arnaud taking a step backwards and Sean Murphy doing very little since returning from injury.
In the past two weeks, Atlanta has hit just .225 and has paired a troublesome 22.9% strikeout rate with an extremely-low 5.8% walk rate. This team can still hit for some power, but its approach is totally broken.
With the offense covered, I want to talk a bit about Fried here. His profile is shockingly similar to Olson's, with a strong ground-ball rate and low barrel and hard-hit rates driving his fair 3.20 ERA to this point in the season.
The walk and strikeout rates have gone in the wrong direction (by around two and three percentage points respectively), and what it's amounted to is roughly league-average expected stats.
For all the poor numbers the Tigers carry into this one, they're only a handful of spots lower than the Braves when it comes to hitting ground-ball arms, and they've been the team that's shown the only marked improvement over the last couple of weeks.
Tigers vs. Braves
Betting Pick & Prediction
The Braves are offering at everything, ranking sixth in the league over the last two weeks with swings on 50.6% of all the pitches they've seen.
I think that should help Olson get back to himself, given the issues he's encountered of late have seemed to come as a result of hunting strikeouts.
His whiff rate is up this month, and he's found more punch outs. But it's come at the expense of losing his biggest weapon, which is the ground ball.
Atlanta is rolling over on bad pitches right now, and that should be music to Olson's ears. As I noted, he's done well to suppress power this season, and that should create a very meek look for this Braves team.
I don't see too large of a delta between Fried and Olson, given both are contact-oriented in their approach and Detroit has been the more reliable of the two teams on contact.
Even on the road, this isn't a very fair number to hang on Detroit. Fried and the Braves are getting too much respect off the back of their name value, and not enough credit is being given to an improving Tigers offense.
Pick: Tigers ML (+180)
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