Yankees vs. Tigers Odds
Yankees Odds | -240 |
Tigers Odds | +200 |
Over/Under | 7 |
Time | 7:10 p.m. ET |
TV | MLB.TV |
The New York Yankees will head to Detroit to kick off a three-game weekend series against the Detroit Tigers. In the first series between these two teams, the Yankees swept the three-game set against the Tigers and outscored them 18-4.
The Yankees enter the weekend at 29-21 and are 7-3 in their last 10 games. Detroit is 19-31 on the season and has the second-worst record in the American League.
Yankees Send Gerrit Cole to the Mound
Yankees ace Gerrit Cole (RHP) opened the season as the favorite to win the AL Cy Young Award with +350 odds. After 10 starts, Cole is an even more clear-cut favorite, and his odds have shortened to -125. Cole is 6-2 with a 1.81 ERA this season and has allowed more than two runs in a game just once all season.
Cole ranks eighth in the league in ERA, third in expected ERA and second with a 1.71 FIP. He has a 12.80 K/9, which ranks fifth in the league, and teams have just a .229 xwOBA against him. Cole’s fastball averages 97.2 miles per hour, which he combines with the best changeup in baseball. His changeup has a 40.9 K% and has allowed just a .047 batting average and .065 wOBA. He has thrown his changeup 148 times this season and has allowed just two hits.
The Bronx Bombers have been pretty up-and-down at the plate this season. They started cold, got red hot for a stretch, and have since cooled off a bit again. The Yankees rank just 21st in the league in runs and sit 22nd in batting average, 16th in OPS, 16th in wOBA and 14th in wRC+.
MVP candidate Aaron Judge leads the team in hits, RBIs and home runs with 13. He is batting .307 this season with a .983 OPS. Over the last two weeks he has been on fire, batting .400 with a 1.256 OPS. Judge heating up at the plate was huge with Aaron Hicks, Luke Voit and Giancarlo Stanton all on the injured list and DJ LeMahieu off to a slow start. Good news for New York is Stanton is expected to be activated on Friday.
Casey Mize has Rebounded Following Slow Start for Tigers
Friday night will be a battle of former No. 1 overall picks as Cole (2011) will face 2018 first overall pick Casey Mize (RHP). It took Mize a little while to get going, and he was actually one of my favorite pitchers to fade last year and early this season, but it looks like he has turned the corner.
In his last four starts, Mize has lasted at least six innings in each outing and has allowed just one run in three of the games and two in the other. He is 2-0 with 1.73 ERA in the last four starts. Mize doesn’t have great strikeout upside with a 6.84 K/9, but he does a great job generating ground balls with a 52.4% ground ball rate, which ranks ninth in the league.
As expected for a young team, the Tigers rank near the bottom of the league in most offensive categories. They sit 26th in batting average, 27th in OPS and wOBA and 28th in runs scored. They have been a bit better of late though, and are 14th in batting average and 18th in OPS over the last week.
The Detroit lineup doesn’t necessarily have a single bat that a pitcher would fear, but guys like Robbie Grossman, Jeimer Candelario and rookie Akil Baddoo have all been solid at the plate.
Yankees-Tigers Pick
I think people see the talent and power up and down the lineup for the Bronx Bombers and know they are capable of lighting up a scoreboard in a hurry. But the Yankees just have not hit as well as expected and their lineup continues to be overvalued.
The under in Yankees games is 31-19 this season, and games have gone under 62% of the time, the second most of any team this season. The under is 28-20-2 in Detroit games as well, the third most in the league.
Both of these lineups have ranked in the bottom half of the league offensively and will go up against pitchers drafted No. 1 overall and looking like it. Cole is a heavy favorite for the Cy Young and Mize has been excellent over the last month. The under is 7-3 in Cole’s starts this season and 8-1 with Mize on the mound.
I like both pitchers to continue to pitch well as we see a good old fashioned pitcher’s duel on Friday.
Pick: Total Runs Under 7 (-105)