MLB Picks

Mitch Keller owns an abysmal 8.72 ERA and has allowed at least three runs in eight of nine starts when facing teams that slot Top-10 in OPS vs. right-handed pitching.

Gerrit Cole has not looked sharp, and that’s been problematic at home. He has allowed 1.91 homers per nine innings in New York.

Bet to -115.

Two bad teams square off here, but I'll take the team with the pitching advantage in this matchup. Landen Roupp has strikeout power, and he's been dialed in of late, pitching 15 innings across his last two starts, giving up one run on five hits. The Royals, while they've won two straight, are still in the bottom half in terms of runs and power. Roupp delivers another gem. 

My projection lands at 9.6 total runs, so this is a very small edge, but at the plus-money price, I'll go that direction and play it to -105. Neither starter is built to fully shut this down and I'd be suprised if they did. For example, Chandler’s 13% walk rate creates free traffic in Yankee Stadium, while Warren’s recent form leaves the Buccos with a real scoring path. Ultimately, I do not need Pittsburgh to dominate Warren; we just need them to contribute enough. I think there’s plenty of power in the lineup to do that.
 

For variety's sake, Varsho is a decent quarter-unit play here. He hasn't homered since June 23, yet he is ramping up lately. Varsho has at least one hit in five of his last six contests, including one of only two Jays RBI yesterday. He's also oddly equipped to handle Jax's arsenal of mostly junk pitches. Jax uses a changeup 23% of the time, and Varsho slugs .421 against offspeeds. 

It's really tough to trust the Tigers' offense right now, so we'll gladly take the hot-hitting Cubbies at home at a short price. Colin Rea has given up three or fewer runs in five straight games, and with the way the Tigers are hitting right now, that trend should continue. Take the home side here. 

The Cardinals are in a premium offensive spot against Zac Gallen, who enters the day with the second-worst pitcher rating in Batters-Box's current season model. Gallen has struggled to limit power and hard contact, carrying poorly rated matchup marks in ISO, hard contact rate, and ground ball rate. St. Louis counters with seven elite-rated hitters and an offense averaging more than 2.5 first five innings runs per game at home. The Cardinals have also been red hot lately, posting a 122 wRC+ over their last 12 games. With so many favorable individual matchups, backing the offense as a whole makes plenty of sense.

Okamoto's hitting profile perfectly matches up well against Imanaga’s stuff. The Cubs starter throws a heavy dose of the fastball and gets barreled up at a 10.4% rate. The Jays third baseman barrels the ball better than anyone in the Blue Jays lineup with a 13.5% barrel rate, while owning a 63.2% hard hit rate against the four-seamer. 

Atlanta and Chicago send two of the best lineups in baseball to the dish, and they respectively rank eighth and third in wOBA against lefties for the campaign. The two clubs have also trended to the Over, and I'm particularly expecting White Sox southpaw Anthony Kay to struggle considering he's saddled with the fifth-highest xERA in baseball among the 100 pitchers with at least 60 innings this year.