Yankees vs Rays Picks and Predictions: New York Gets to Tampa Pitching Early in Road Win

The New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays will wrap up a three-game series in Florida tonight. 

Tampa Bay pulled off the upset last night with a 5-4 win to draw level in this homestead. The Rays, surprisingly, did it off the strength of the long ball with four home runs as they held off a late rally by New York.

Can the Yanks bounce back tonight? Read our MLB betting picks and predictions for Rays vs. Yankees to see which side we'll be backing tonight. 

Yankees vs Rays odds

This odds widget represents the best odds available for each betting market from regulated sportsbooks.

Odds for the game were released this morning. The Yankees opened up as -140 favorites, with the Rays returning around +120. The odds have mostly stayed there across the board. The total opened up at 7.0 and stayed there.

Use the live odds widget above to track any future line movements right up until first pitch and be sure to check out the full MLB odds before placing your bets.

Yankees vs Rays predictions

• Prediction: Yankees ML (-140)
• Prediction: Yankees F5 TT Over 1.5 (-130)
• Best bet: Yankees F5 TT Over 1.5 (-130)

Picks made on 6/22/2022 at 2:05 p.m. ET.
Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.

Yankees vs Rays game info

• Location: Tropicana Field, Tampa, FL
• Date: Wednesday, June 22, 2022
• First pitch: 7:10 p.m. ET
• TV: MLB Network

Yankees vs Rays betting preview

Starting pitchers

Jordan Montgomery (3-1, 2.73 ERA): Montgomery has yet to give New York a bad start. His worst outing of the season came against the Red Sox when he only lasted three innings but even there, he limited the damage to just three runs. In his last outing, Montgomery worked around three hits against the Jays to give up just three earned runs in six innings. Simply put, he's been solid each time he's hit the field. So much of Montgomery's success has been aided by his chase rate, as it's among the best in the majors.

Shane Baz (0-1, 5.40 ERA): Baz has gotten off to a rough start in 2022. He's only made two starts, but in one of those, he lasted just two innings. In said game, he gave up five earned to the Twins. Baz's issues have seemed to be with teams that can barrel him up. The Twins rank third in that category in baseball. His xERA hovers just over 6.5, which may signal things getting a little worse for Baz before they get better. 

Weather

Be sure to monitor the gametime conditions with our MLB weather info.

Key injuries

Yankees: Aroldis Chapman CP (Out).
Rays: Kevin Kiermaier CF (Out), Manuel Margot CF (Out), Mike Zunino C (Out), Wander Franco 2B (Out), Brandon Lowe 2B (Out), Drew Rasmussen RP (Out).
Find our latest MLB injury reports.

Betting trend to know

The Under is 7-1 in the last eight meetings of these two teams. Find more MLB betting trends for Yankees vs. Rays

Yankees vs Rays picks and predictions

Our side and total predictions are based upon our analysis of the line and total in this game. Our best bet is our favorite pick across all markets.

Moneyline analysis

This series has been a difficult one to get a grasp on. What happened last night was genuinely unexpected given the Rays' offensive struggles. However, for the third consecutive time in this series, I believe there is a distinct pitching edge, and I will side with the Yankees to "right the ship."

This is a perfect example of a known commodity going against someone still unknown. Jordan Montgomery has done enough this season for me to trust him going forward. The most runs he's given up in a game is three, and he's managed to do an incredible job of getting out of tricky spots.

Sometimes a factoid like that can be misleading, and that pitcher is working on borrowed time. That doesn't feel like the case for Montgomery though, as his xERA (3.84) isn't dramatically far off from his actual ERA (2.73). And his stuff? It's pretty good, evidenced by his elite whiff rate and chase rate. You know what you're getting here with Montgomery, and that's simply not the case with Shane Baz.

For Baz, it feels like the verdict is still very much out. He was solid last season in the slash categories, and the xERA (2.53) backed up that it wasn't just window dressing. But there was limited data and not much with him facing big bats.

He's seen one this season already in the Twins and got walloped. He has already had as many barreled balls this season as he did last year in fewer starts. Maybe this guy has an issue finding barrels he has to work through? If that's the case — and plenty of data suggests that it is — then I can't pass up the opportunity here. He may be facing the team that does the best job barrelling up the ball in baseball. 

My personal projections have the Yankees winning this game around 65% of the time, which gives me a nice edge compared to the juice. 

Prediction: Yankees moneyline (-140 at DraftKings)

Over/Under analysis

I'm going to be looking to target the unknown nature of Baz, whom I believe oddsmakers aren't sure about.

A season ago, he saw a different version of this Yankees team and struggled. Baz pitched one inning, was taken deep once, and generally looked unready for the moment. The same story happened a few weeks later when he started against the Blue Jays. Toronto tagged him for two earned runs via two long balls. I can't get away from his barrel issues. If that could be a persistent issue for him, we are genuinely getting the Yankees at a value price. 

We'll look to key exclusively on this pitching matchup and focus on the F5 market. My projections have the Yankees going Over this mark pretty frequently. I love the edge here. 

Prediction: Yankees F5 team total Over 1.5 (-130 at DraftKings)

Best bet

I'm not going to make this much more complicated than it needs to be. The Yankees are getting a guy on the mound in Baz that seems to have an issue giving up hard contact. That's a nightmare scenario against this lineup, but it's even worse when you're a right-handed pitcher.

The Yanks haven't lost two games in a row that often this season and are potentially in one of the rougher stretches they've had in a while. So I expect them to want to alleviate that quickly out of the gate today. 

Pick: Yankees F5 team total Over 1.5 (-130 at DraftKings)

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