MLB Picks

Generous winds are blowing out to right field at PNC Park, and the pitching matchup is working in their favor as well. Keller has allowed 4+ runs in all but one of his last seven starts, posting a 7.64 ERA over that stretch. His flyball rate is lower than his career average, and his HR/FB rate is starting to normalize after some early-season months of keeping it below 10%. His SIERA and xFIP are both at five-year highs, suggesting these bad times are here to stay. Naylor has seen Keller eight times in his career, taking him deep once while hitting .375. I love the Mariners team total Over 4.5 today, and Naylor is one of the better +EV home run props on the board with a fair price closer to +520.

Pete Crow-Armstrong is the hottest hitter in baseball right now. He leads MLB in slugging over the last two weeks at .935, and his .500 ISO trails only Shohei Ohtani. This is a great price in a game that could feature multiple home runs given the pitching matchup. Kodai Senga owns the 13th-worst HR/FB rate among MLB starters this season, and only three qualified starters have a worse groundball rate. He's allowed multiple home runs in three of his last four starts, and this will be just his second outing after missing three weeks with a spine/arm injury. Senga may be the biggest pitching target on the slate today, and getting a red-hot hitter at +300 or better in a plus-plus home run matchup is an easy way to make the HR card.

The Chicago White Sox are one of the league’s best offenses against southpaws, ranking fifth in wOBA, fourth in OPS, and first in ISO. Parker Messick owns an xFIP of 4.01 and SIERA of 4.25 over the past 30 days. Both of those outputs are well above the 3.21 ERA he has posted, a sign a dip could be coming.

Justin Wrobleski continues to thrive for Los Angeles, posting a 2.72 ERA and walking just 0.76 hitters per nine innings over his last four appearances. Minnesota's bullpen owns a 5.50 FIP and has allowed 2.08 home runs per nine innings over the last two weeks, and they will start an opener here. 

JR Ritchie has struggled lately, posting a 6.70 FIP and 46.2% hard-hit rate over his last 10 innings while carrying a 5.24 road FIP. Griffin Canning has been much better at Petco Park, and Atlanta's offense enters cold with just a .120 ISO over the last week.

The Cubs are heating up at the dish with a fifth-ranked wOBA, ISO and xwOBA over the past two weeks while averaging 5.7 runs per game. Chicago lefty Shota Imanaga has also flipped the script with just a single run allowed and opposing hitters limited to a miniscule 19.3% squared-up contact rate and 3.5% blast contact rate across 10 2/3 innings over his past two starts. The Cubbies should also have their way with struggling New York Mets righty Kodai Senga. His 5.12 xERA ranks in the 17th percentile, and he has negative pitch values on three of his most frequent four offerings, after all.

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.