| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 0 | 2 | 0.00 | -4.00 |
| Last 30 Days | 35 | 45 | 0.00 | +2.94 |
| Season to Date | 186 | 266 | 0.00 | -43.58 |
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All plays are for 2 units.
CINCINNATI +102 over Texas
7:10 PM EST. Cincinnati’s 18-9 defeat yesterday to the Dodgers sticks out like a sore thumb, which makes them unplayable in the minds of many. Lost in the defeat is the fact that the Reds scored nine times. Cincinnati has scored nine runs or more in three of its last four games and they also have the second best record in the NL since the All-Star break.
Dan Straily has struggled against lefties for years, a weakness that has prevented him from sticking as a viable mid-rotation starter until this season. That issue has not been cleared up during his mini-breakout this year. Straily is still struggling versus lefties but Texas is a heavy right-handed lineup with just two batters (Mitch Moreland and Nomar Mozara) hitting left. Straily’s stats (2.91 ERA, 0.99 WHIP) and skills show life when he faces RH bats, which comes into play here. Regardless, this wager has nothing to do with backing Straily and everything to do with fading Derek Holland. Holland makes James Shields look like Clayton Kershaw.
Derek Holland pitches today ONLY because the Rangers are paying him 7.4M this season. He’s made just 14 starts this year, which turns out to be $528,000 per start. There is no way they are going to pay him that type of money to sit. They would rather lose a game than do that. After a knee sidelined Holland in 2014, a bum shoulder sidelined him last year. Shoulder inflammation did him in this time. When he pitched this year, he was either bad or terrible 90% of the time (via dominant start/disaster start split %). Bad health and skill inconsistency cements the risk in his profile. Holland’s swing and miss rate this year is 6%. His 36%/42% groundball/fly-ball split isn’t likely to play well at this park. Holland now comes off the DL to make his first appearance in over two months. In his last three appearances, Holland was tagged for 18 hits and 13 runs in 13 innings. Four of those 18 hits left the yard. If the Texas Rangers win here, a distinct possibility indeed, so be it. However, you would be hard pressed to find a pitcher in the past decade that is less deserving to be road chalk than Derek Holland.
L.A. Angels +126 over TORONTO
7:10 PM EST. Tyler Skaggs is now 21 months past his Tommy John surgery. Skaggs has made just five starts this season and his numbers are not pretty (5.19 ERA). However, he does have 27 K’s in 26 innings along with 95 MPH heat with life. He also had a terrific Triple-A rehab stint (39 IP, 53/8 K/BB, 1.60 ERA). He’s getting stronger. Skaggs is a strike thrower with a lot of promise. He does bring risk but not any more than his mound opponent here. Furthermore, the Blue Jays continue to struggle to score runs.
Toronto’s offense is not even league average this season. The Jays are batting .235 over their past 40 games and just .240 over their past 20 games, which is third last in the AL over that span. When R.A. Dickey pitches, he insists that he is caught by Josh Thole. Therefore Thole and his .155 batting average (in 103 AB’s) will be in the lineup tonight. That’s equivalent to having a NL pitcher batting. Naturally, Thole bats ninth. So, with Dickey and his personal catcher playing once every five days and taking up a roster spot, Mark Shapiro figured sending Cy Young candidate, Aaron Sanchez to the minors to ride buses for 10 days would be a good idea. Shapiro was an idiot in Cleveland and he’s an even bigger idiot now. Dickey has started 13 games at the Rogers Center this season and Toronto has won two of them. Dickey has lost at home this season to Philadelphia (7-0), San Diego (8-4) the White Sox (10-0) and Tampa Bay twice (6-3 & 7-5) among others. Dickey personally has two wins over his last 14 home starts and while the Blue Jays are always dangerous in their own barn, they almost always lose when Dickey pitches at home. In other words, when R.A. pitches at the Rogers Center, Toronto’s chances of losing are far greater than winning.
MIAMI -114 over Kansas City
7:10 PM. We are going to wait to pull the trigger here. We absolutely expect this line to move significantly, as the market loads up on the Royals. Therefore, expect it to be close to a pick-em later in the day and that’s is when we will step in. No bets right now but we’ll update it to an official wager later on.
Ahhhh, the Royals. Remember them? Don’t look now but K.C. is just four games out of a Wild Card spot with a lot of baseball still to be played. They are also the hottest team in baseball with nine wins in their past 10 games. Now Andrew Cashner is favored over Yordano Ventura? Ventura has experienced more growth in his skills from April to August than any other starter in MLB. After a horrible April and May due to control issues, Ventura's skills were impactful in June: 7.8 K’s/9, 1.9 BB’s/9, 53% grounders. In July and August, Ventura has stepped it up even more. He threw 68% first-pitch strikes in his past two starts. He has a 3.08/3.47 ERA/xERA over his last six starts with 33 K’s in 38 innings over that span. Ventura is also throwing an average of 97 MPH on the gun. Ventura’s swing and miss rate in his last two starts was elite at 15%. The Royals are extremely popular and now that they’re on fire in late August, they have even more market appeal, especially against Andrew Cashner, a starter with rather ugly numbers. Kansas City is not going unnoticed. Why then, did the odds makers open the Royals up as the dog here? That raises red flags for us and it should for you too.
Andrew Cashner saw his ERA jump from 2.55 in 2014 to 4.34 in 2015, but just as things weren’t as rosy as they seemed in 2014, they weren’t quite as bad as they appeared in 2015. Now he finds himself in August with a 4.92 ERA. Do the underlying metrics offer reason for hope? Cashner’s 2015 strikeout rate uptick has faded, and a subpar swing and miss rate suggests additional shrinkage. Fewer swings and misses on his change-up (2014/2015/2016: 16%/12.2%/4.6%) and reduced usage of his slider, down 11% from 2015, have been key factors. After struggling with the slider early in the year, Cashner has reportedly found a new grip that has paid dividends. Small sample size caveats apply, but Cashner was elite at one point. He throws 94 MPH on the gun and he also has a heavy groundball lean of 54% since joining the Marlins (47% before). Cashner could provide sneaky value down the stretch and this line screams out that Kansas City is very likely the sucker dog play of the day.
