Yankees vs Blue Jays Picks and Predictions: It's a Cole World

Yankees ace Gerrit Cole has allowed two earned runs or fewer in 11 of his 13 starts and is punching out batters at the highest clip in the AL, but he'll be up against one of MLB's top offenses. Who has the edge? Find out in our Yankees vs. Blue Jays picks.

Jun 16, 2021 • 12:28 ET • 4 min read
Gerrit Cole New York Yankees MLB
Photo By - USA TODAY Sports

The New York Yankees snapped a three-game skid with a 6-5 win over the Toronto Blue Jays in Tuesday's series opener and will now send their ace to the hill to try to make it two in a row.

Gerrit Cole will get the ball for Wednesday night's game at Sahlen Field in Buffalo, opposed by Toronto right-hander Ross Stripling. 

Can Toronto's potent offense get to the flamethrower? Find out with our Yankees vs. Blue Jays picks and predictions for June 16. 

Yankees vs Blue Jays game info

Location: Sahlen Field, Buffalo, NY
Date: Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Time: 7:07 p.m. ET
TV: SN1, YES

Yankees vs Blue Jays odds

Odds via the Covers Line, an average comprised of odds from multiple sportsbooks.

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MLB Sharp Money and Line Movement Report

By Patrick Everson

TwinSpires Sportsbook opened the Yankees at -167 and initially rose to -175, then backed up to -159, where the moneyline sits at 4 p.m. ET. The Blue Jays are attracting 67 percent of moneyline bets and 60 percent of moneyline cash. The total is steady at 8.5, with the Under getting 59 percent of bets/69 percent of money.

Check out the full line movement for this game

Yankees vs Blue Jays betting preview

Starting pitchers

Gerrit Cole (7-3, 2.31 ERA): Cole followed up one of the worst starts of his season with another strong outing his last time out. He punched out nine over six innings, limiting the Twins to two runs and five hits in a Yankees win. The strikeout artist has been one of the game's best pitchers and takes a career-best 10.3 strikeout-to-walk rate into tonight's start against the Blue Jays, who he faced on Opening Day. Cole went 5 1-3 innings in that start, allowing two runs and fanning eight.

Ross Stripling (2-3, 4.91 ERA): While the right-hander has a 4.91 ERA, he has lowered that from the 7.20 mark it was sitting after a May 19 drubbing by the Red Sox. He has largely thrown the ball well since then, but Boston did get to him again for four runs in his last start. Prior to that, Stripling had allowed two runs in 17 innings (good for a 1.06 ERA) over a span of three appearances.

Weather

The temperature is expected to be 66 degrees and mostly sunny for first pitch, with 11 mph winds blowing west, in addition to stronger wind gusts of 21 mph. Be sure to monitor the gametime conditions with our MLB weather info.

Key injuries

Yankees: Darren O'Day RP (Out), Luke Voit 1B (Out), Aaron Hicks OF (Out).
Blue Jays: George Springer OF (Out), A.J. Cole RP (Out), Ryan Borucki RP (Out), Danny Jansen C (Out), Alejandro Kirk C (Out).
Find our latest MLB injury reports.

Betting trend to know

The Under is 8-3 in the last 11 head-to-head meetings between the Yankees and Blue Jays. Find more MLB betting trends for Yankees vs. Blue Jays.

Moneyline pick

Toronto's bullpen had another rough day in the series opener, which is becoming far too common lately. And it's making the Blue Jays harder to trust, no matter how prolific their offense is behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 

The Blue Jays have what's at worst probably a Top-3 offense in baseball. They lead MLB in homers and slugging and are right near the top in a number of other significant categories, but they sit just one game over .500, which is largely due to a bullpen that has imploded repeatedly.

Toronto ranks third in FanGraphs' catch-all offensive stat, weighted runs created plus, and the rest of the teams that make up the Top 5 are all doing significantly better than it in the standings. The wRC+-leading Astros are 10 games over .500, the Dodgers and Athletics are 15 games over, while the AL Central-best White Sox are 42-25.

Simply put, the Blue Jays should be doing better than this. They have an offense that can get out to big leads and bail out their leaky 'pen but don't bet on that happening tonight against Cole, the overwhelming AL Cy Young favorite.

There's a major starting pitching mismatch here, and the Yankees' bullpen is significantly better than Toronto's. If the Blue Jays had a better starter on the mound, they could be a worthy underdog behind their thumping offense. But this is a game the Yankees should win and, with Cole on the mound, it's worth taking them on the runline for better odds.

PREDICTION: New York -1.5 (-101)

Over/Under pick

A lot of watchful eyes will be paying even more attention to Cole's starts going forward as MLB begins to crackdown on pitchers using foreign substances to boost performance. Cole is widely believed to be one of those pitchers and has a target on his back after being called out for it by Josh Donaldson, in addition to reports that he was using advanced grip enhancers back during his time in Houston. He's far from the only one doing it, but he's turned into the poster boy, which means he will be scrutinized heavily.

Suspensions of 10 games will start July 21 for pitchers who are caught violating the rules and using sticky stuff. But until we get well past that date and see what, if any, effect it has on a pitcher's results, it's only a guessing game as to how this might impact offensive performance, and, for our purposes, Over/Under totals. 

So for now, we'll stick with the facts: Cole is one of the game's most dominant starters. He has allowed two earned runs or fewer in 11 of his 13 starts, leading to a 2.31 ERA. He trails only Jacob deGrom in strikeout rate (punching out 36.7 percent of the batters he has faced) and ranks second in the AL in WHIP at 0.87.

It's not fun facing him, and he'll be backed by a bullpen that has the lowest WHIP in the AL and the second-best ERA. 

As for Stripling, he's not going to overpower like Cole but can be serviceable (2.38 ERA over his last four outings, which includes three starts) and runs into an offense that leaves a lot to be desired. The Detroit Tigers are the only AL team scoring fewer runs per game than the Yankees, who are averaging 3.91 per contest and are below league average in wRC+.

They are hitting better of late (fifth in OPS over the last two weeks compared to 14th on the season) but they cash Unders at the third-highest rate in the AL and the Jays are right behind them at fourth. We'll take the Under at plus money tonight.

PREDICTION: Under 8.5 (+104)

Yankees vs Blue Jays betting card

  • New York -1.5 (-101)
  • Under 8.5 (+104)

Picks made on 6/16/2021 at 11:07 a.m. ET

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