MLB Picks

Kyle Schwarber finds himself in another elite spot tonight against Reds right hander Brady Singer. The Phillies slugger owns an elite Batters-Box rating, and across 263 elite ratings over the last three seasons, he has homered 27.76% of the time while going over this prop 42.59% of the time. Singer has struggled against left handed hitters recently, allowing a .680 xSLG and .344 xwOBA over his last 30 faced. Schwarber has also been crushing right handed pitching, posting a .977 OPS and .560 SLG over his last 60 plate appearances.

The Cardinals are 7-1 in Andre Pallante's last eight starts. He's been superb during that stretch, posting the third-best hard-hit rate and third-best groundball rate. Logan Henderson is great, but his return from the IL creates some uncertainty, and the bullpen behind him has been poor (4.81 SIERA, 5.01 xFIP in the last 14 days).

Trout returned to the lineup as the DH last night and wasted no time going deep (+350). It wasn't a wall scraper either, leaving the bat at 110 mph and traveling 438 feet. His HR/AB pace this season is better than last year's, and only a handful of hitters — Yordan Alvarez, James Wood, and Juan Soto among them — own a higher xwOBA than Trout. Nathan Eovaldi has already allowed nearly twice as many home runs this season as he did all of last year, and the numbers are starting to trend in the wrong direction during his age-36 campaign.

Merrill Kelly enters today with one of the worst pitcher ratings on Batters-Box, including the lowest matchup strikeout rate in the current season dataset. His recent strikeout trends in poor spots are concerning, staying under 4 strikeouts in 47% of poorly rated games and 66.67% of games with a poorly rated matchup strikeout rate this season. Kelly’s strikeout rate has also stayed below 13% over his last 5 starts and sits at just 10.34% on the road this season. Despite the San Diego Padres’ recent strikeout issues, their offense has been seeing the ball well, making this a strong spot for Kelly to fall short.

Zac Gallen has been one of the most vulnerable pitchers on the board, especially away from Arizona, where he owns a 7.68 ERA and 6.00 xERA while surrendering plenty of hard contact and barrels. Things do not get any easier against a Cardinals lineup loaded with seven elite-rated hitters according to Batters-Box. St. Louis has been one of the hotter offenses in baseball recently, producing a 122 wRC+, .782 OPS, and .345 wOBA over its last 12 games. With Gallen's struggles and the Cardinals continuing to swing hot bats, this sets up as an excellent spot to back St. Louis early and often.

I'm fading Chicago White Sox lefty Anthony Kay on Thursday. He's sporting the fifth-highest xERA among the 100 pitchers with at least 60 innings, after all. Plus, the Atlanta Braves enter ranked eighth in wOBA against southpaws for the season and sixth in overall xwOBA across the past 14 days.

Ranger Suarez has started four games against teams ranking Top-10 in OPS vs. left-handed pitching, allowing 13 runs and posting a 6.13 ERA during those games. The New York Yankees lead the majors in OPS against lefties so they’re a prime candidate to cause Suarez problems. Playable to -145.

The Braves have dropped five of six while averaging just 2.8 runs per game and ranking 29th in wOBA without Ronald Acuna Jr. (hamstring), and it’s been a smoke-and-mirrors start for veteran lefty Martin Perez, and there’s serious statistical correction ahead of his .230 BABIP and 80.2% strand rate considering they’re both high-end marks about pitchers with at least 60 innings this season. San Francisco is just the offense to kick-start the regression, too. The Giants are pacing the majors in wOBA and fourth in xwOBA over the past 30 days, after all.