| Range | W | L | P | +/- (Units) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday | 2 | 1 | 0.00 | +2.43 |
| Last 30 Days | 49 | 45 | 0.00 | +19.09 |
| Season to Date | 107 | 114 | 0.00 | +17.55 |
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All plays are 2 units
HOME TEAM IN CAPS
Minnesota +153 over BOSTON
1:35 PM EST. John Lackey is having a mighty fine year with 11 pure quality starts in 14 attempts. Lackey has a skills supported 3.24 ERA and deserves every bit of it with a good K rate, outstanding control, a steady groundball bias profile and normal hit and strand rates. He’s also been very good at Fenway. However, the team he pitches for is not scoring runs. Boston scored two last night and they scored one time the previous night. The Red Sox have score two runs or less in four straight and in seven of their past nine. Over the past 10 games, Boston is in the bottom three in the major leagues in several offensive categories, which makes them far too big a risk when spotting a tag like this.
One could argue that the Twins aren’t scoring either and that argument would be valid if they were the one’s spotting a big tag or even taking back a small one. Sometimes the price dictates the play and this is one of those times. Minnesota is relatively healthy, they’re very capable of putting up some runs and they are ahead of Boston in almost every key offensive category after playing half of their games in a less hitter-friendly venue. Kyle Gibson has not allowed an earned run in three of his past four starts. In 13 starts, he’s only been taken yard four times and his ERA has dropped from 4.74 after his May 10th start to 3.55 after his last start. Gibson has an elite 55% groundball rate on the year and over his last five starts his GB rate is even higher at 59%. Gibson has just 38 K’s in 76 innings and that has him undervalued but his 12% swing and miss rate over his last 10 games strongly suggests that a significant uptick in strikeouts is coming. This former first round pick (2009) may have been rushed to the big leagues a little too quickly but he has the best raw stuff on this Twins staff and he’s finally starting to figure it out. At this price, Gibson and the Twins offer up some great value and we’re on it.
Kansas City +123 over DETROIT
1:05 PM EST. At some point the Royals are going to cool off but you would have to go deep into the baseball archives to find the last time a team put up numbers like the Royals just did over a 9-game stretch. Kansas City has scored 67 times over that span while batting a hefty .355. They’ve also gone yard 12 times in their past nine games and it’s interesting to note that the Royals hot streak coincided with the hiring of a new hitting coach (Dale Sveum). Since Sveum took over the duties, the Royals are 13-4 and have 17 jacks after having only 21 bombs through 53 games prior. This team is red-hot, they can’t wait to get back to the park and as long as they’re paying off at the window, we’ll continue to play them.
We’re not going to try and make a case for Jeremy Guthrie over Drew Smyly but if the better pitcher won every game, we’d all be rich. What we know for sure is that Guthrie is pitching for the hottest team in baseball while Detroit’s pitching staff is shell-shocked. The Tigers pen is a mess and Smyly may be left in there longer than he normally would because of that brutal and overtaxed pen. Furthermore, Smyly is not in great form to begin with. He’s had extreme outcomes the entire year with a dominant start/disaster split of 50%/50% after 10 starts. The Tigers have dropped five of the last six games that Smyly has started and his 1.33 WHIP suggests he’s going to get into several jams every game he starts. Smyly has not pitched past the sixth inning in any of his starts this year and he’s certainly up against it here. The Royals are once again much too hot to ignore taking back a price and that’s all there is to it.
N.Y. YANKEES -108 over Toronto
After setting the world on fire with an offense that looked unstoppable for a month long stretch, Toronto is now pressing at the plate and swinging for the fences in every AB. Over the past 10 games the Blue Jays are batting .218. Jays’ batters combined to strike out 15 times last night against Masahiro Tanaka and two relievers. After being kept off balance the entire evening, the struggling Jays will now face a pitcher they’ve never seen in Chase Whitley. Whitley was called up to make his major league debut for the Yankees on May 15. He has some deception in his delivery, he throws a lot of strikes and he commands his pitches well. Whitley has looked really good after six starts and 34 frames with a BB/K split of 3/24 to go along with a groundball bias profile. Even more promising is his 12% swing a miss rate, a mark that is normally associated with 9½+ K’s per nine. Over his last 29 innings, Whitley has walked one batter while whiffing 20. The Yankees have won five of Whitley’s six games with their only loss occurring at home against the Twins in which he went five full and allowed just one run with a groundball/fly-ball split of 60%/20%. Whitley had a 32/7 K/BB in 26 IP at Triple-A prior to his recall so this might be more than a blip. Whitley’s 2.40 ERA comes with full skills support.
Mark Buehrle has rewarded his backers with 10 wins and a sub-2.50 ERA after 95 IP. The real reason for his success has been his effectiveness with runners on base that has led to an unsustainable 82% strand rate. Digging deeper, his avoidance of hits and home runs with guys on base has fueled his tiny ERA. He has a crazy low 21% hit rate and 2% hr/f with runners on. Both marks are among the top-10 lowest marks in MLB. Once those regress, and they will, his ERA and WHIP will head north quickly. How long he can keep avoiding disasters remains unknown but the safe bet is that regression is on the way. At age 35, Buehrle has never been an ace, he’s still not an ace and he’s not going to keep winning games at the pace he won games in the first two months. Mark Beuhrle is one of the most overvalued pitchers in the game and now is the time to sell high.
