The Cleveland Guardians and Seattle Mariners have both began the 2024 season at 3-2, with some highlights and some causes for concern.
Two will present themselves in a tantalizing pitching matchup on Tuesday night when Shane Bieber, fresh off a stellar season debut, takes on Luis Castillo as he looks to rebound from a rocky first start.
Who gets the better of this duel? Let's dive right into it and break down the MLB odds and offer free MLB picks and predictions for Guardians vs. Mariners on Tuesday, April 2.
Guardians vs Mariners odds
Guardians vs Mariners predictions
Given he’s trending down, and his counterpart on Tuesday is trending up, we’d have bet on Shane Bieber being the one to falter in his season-opening start and not Luis Castillo. Yet it was the Seattle Mariners’ ace to cough up four earned runs on six hits, including a homer, along with two walks in a poor showing at home against the lowly Red Sox.
Castillo did manage to get more balls coming back on the ground than he did last season, which was encouraging, but it’s to be expected against a Red Sox team that is chock-full of ground ball merchants. The same story will present itself here in the form of the Cleveland Guardians, who have once again been one of the best teams in the league through the first week and change at limiting strikeouts. The interesting twist, however, has been that Cleveland’s put more balls in the air per batted ball than any team in baseball.
This is of concern for Castillo, whose .408 expected slugging percentage last season was well worse than league average and whose barrel rate was an alarming 9.4%. Like most big-time strikeout pitchers, it didn’t seem to matter all that much as Castillo rode his 27.3% strikeout rate to a 3.34 ERA and plenty of Cy Young votes, but as we saw last week things can get a bit prickly for the flamethrower when the ball is coming back into play.
I expect few strikeouts once more against the Guardians, who simply do not see many of their plate appearances end in third strikes, and on the other side of the coin you’d have to like Bieber’s chances in, ironically, another similar matchup to the one he had in his opening start.
Bieber sat own 11 A’s in a dominant six-inning outing, and I’d expect more of the same on Tuesday given Seattle’s 31.2% strikeout rate leads baseball in the early goings in 2024. This is the same thing that hampered Seattle’s ability to win a season ago, finishing with the second-worst strikeout rate in the game, and due to the pitcher’s park it plays in its home run-or-nothing approach missed the mark with a .710 OPS at home versus a .756 OPS on the road.
This is theoretically a spot to play two pitchers to see some regression to the mean, since I’m no fan of Bieber this season and a fan of Castillo’s, but the matchup simply says otherwise. Take the discount on the Guards.
My best bet: Guardians moneyline (+102 at FanDuel)
Guardians vs Mariners same-game parlay
Guardians moneyline
Tyler Freeman to record a hit
Shane Bieber 7+ strikeouts
I like many of the Guardians to pick up some hits and I’d be inclined to play the likes of Josh Naylor and perhaps Andres Giminez to either homer or rack up some total bases here.
I’ll opt for one guy I feel very good about, and that’s young Tyler Freeman. The infielder has made a fast start here in 2024 with a hit in three of his four games, hitting .250 with a solid .500 slugging percentage. The right-handed hitter has actually fared better against righties in his short career, hitting .248, and against Castillo – who should be giving up plenty of balls in play against a middling defense, I think Freeman is ripe to add yet another hit to his ledger.
As noted above, too, I think Bieber should continue to punch guys out at a high rate against a team striking out over 31% of the time. We should remember that Bieber, once upon a time, was a guy who averaged a strikeout rate above 30% for three seasons before a bit of regression hit in 2022 and then 2023. He’s certainly been capable of reaching these heights in his career, and he doesn’t even need to be overly dominant on Tuesday to pick up seven punchouts against a team which can’t get the ball back into play.
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Guardians vs Mariners moneyline and Over/Under analysis
- In a bizarre scene, meanwhile, an even 50% of tickets and 50% of money are on either team to win this game. Still, we’ve seen the line move towards Cleveland with the Mariners opening at -130 and falling more than 10 cents.
- While 70% of the tickets wagered on the total at DraftKings are on the Over, a whopping 57% of the cash is actually on the Under.
- Consversley, the total has remained stagnant at seven runs.
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Guardians vs Mariners game info
| Location: | T-Mobile Park, Seattle, WA |
| Date: | Tuesday, April 2, 2024 |
| First pitch: | 9:40 p.m. ET |
| TV: | BSGL, RSNW |
Starting pitchers
Shane Bieber (1-0, 0.00 ERA): A veteran who’s been on the decline since a strong 2022 season, Bieber struck out 11 and yielded just five baserunners in six shutout innings in Oakland on Opening Day. He’ll be looking to repeat that against a Mariners team he saw once last year, throwing six scoreless with three punchouts.
Luis Castillo (0-1, 7.20 ERA): Castillo had a soft matchup on Opening Day against the Guardians only to allow three early runs and finish with four earned on six hits and two walks over five frames. He shut down the Guardians the only time he saw them in 2023, allowing just one hit over six near-perfect frames with six strikeouts.
