SPORTS WAGERS
PHILADELPHIA -1½ +178 over San Francisco
We’re not going to concern ourselves much with Philadelphia’s starter here because this has nothing to do with him. This is strictly a fade against Ty Blach but it is worth noting that Jerad Eickhoff is coming on with a BB/K split of 8/23 over his past 27 frames to go along with a xERA of 3.60 over that same span.
AT&T Park is unique. The dimensions are unique and so are the little intricacies that the Giants have mastered over the years. It is for that reason that the Giants manage to stay in games at home and win a high percentage of them. When they had the talent, San Fran could also play on the road but this year the talent level is worse and those key players from years gone by are past their prime. Get the Giants on the road and nothing is the same. With perhaps the worst bullpen in the majors, the Giants nine road wins in 28 tries is atrocious but because the Phillies are in such horrible form offensively, we get a good opportunity to get behind the host before their stock inevitably goes up.
The slumping Phillies enter this series opener with a 17-34 record, worst in baseball. The team’s problems are manyfold, but two players whose struggles stick out are Maikel Franco and Odubel Herrera. Franco, who hit 25 home runs last season, has mustered a paltry .216 batting average with six home runs and 28 RBI’s in 194 plate appearances this season. Herrera, the Phillies’ lone representative in the All-Star Game last year, hit .286 with 42 extra-base hits and 25 stolen bases last season. So far this season, he’s batting a measly .218 with 15 extra-base hits and four stolen bases in 206 PA. However, just like with pitchers, batters have good and bad luck too and this duo has had horrible luck, thus a correction to the good is on the way. The data doesn’t exactly paint a grim picture of Franco or Herrara. Per FanGraphs, Franco is hitting a few more line drives than he did last year and is making harder contact overall while the same goes for Herrara to a lesser degree. Those hard hit balls are going to drop in or hit some gaps real soon. When Franco’s luck changes, so, too will everything else for the Phillies offense and we’ll gamble that the offense breaks out here against Ty Blach.
Blach is 3-2 with a respectable 3.83 ERA which is made up of three relief appearances and five starts. In his last three starts in which Blach went at least seven full innings in each, he has an ERA of 2.49. On paper, it’s pretty but under the hood it doesn’t get much uglier so things are going to blow up on this stiff big time. Blach has decent control and a strong groundball rate of 50% but that’s not enough. You see, he has the worst K-rate in MLB among qualified starters with 19 K’s in 49 innings. His K-rate and 4% swing and miss rate are highly discouraging and his minor league numbers don't offer much hope either. Blach is at the mercy of batting average on balls in play (BABIP) and that is where his home park plays a big role in his success. Ty Blach’s BABIP is a ridiculous and unsustainable .152. What his surface stats do not reveal is that on the road, this hittable pitcher has an ERA of 9.45 after giving up 21 hits and 16 earned runs in 13.1 innings of work. This park is not going to help him out whatsoever.
OAKLAND +122 over Washington
Is there a hotter pitcher in MLB baseball than Stephen Strasburg? That would be a resounding no! Strasburg struck out 15 batters in his last start. The start before that, he whiffed 11. That’s 26 K’s over his last 14.2 innings. In 10 starts, Strasburg is 6-1 with a 2.94 ERA. The Nationals have won his last five starts and overall, Washington has won eight of his 10 starts. Strasburg has a BAA of .213 and he also has an incredible BB/K split of 18/74 over 67 innings. He also pitches for the first-place Nationals, who have a 10-game lead in their division and we just hit June.
Clayton Kershaw is in Milwaukee today. Stephen Strasburg is in Oakland. Milwaukee is 29-25 and in first place in the NL Central while the A’s are 23-30 and in last place in the AL West. Kershaw is a -220 favorite today while Strasburg is a mere -130 against an unrecognizable starter named Andrew Triggs. We have a serious problem with that discrepancy and you should too. Shouldn’t Strasburg be at least somewhere in the same range as Kershaw today? Strasburg is closer in price to Bronson Arroyo today than he is to Clayton Kershaw. You can join the thousands in line to bet Strasburg today in what appears to be a steal of a price or an early Father’s Day gift or you can join us in betting the team that the oddmakers don’t want us to play. In poker, you will often see a “clever” player make a small wager in relation to the pot in a no-limit game when he has a monster hand. That is called an invite bet, which prompts everyone left in the hand to call because the pot is so big and the bet is so small. This is an invite line that serves the same purpose. It is designed to make you lose money and many likely will accept the invitation. Bright red flags are going off here so be very careful if you were thinking Nats.
SAN DIEGO +108 over Colorado
Clayton Richard is putting up some very respectable numbers. He has a BB/K split of 19/50 in 69 innings. Over his last five starts, Richard’s BB/K split is 8/27 over 33 innings. His groundball rate is elite at 58%. Richard has battled his way back from 2013 left shoulder surgery and 2014 thoracic outlet syndrome surgery. The 33-year-old has emerged from those setbacks with a new throwing motion—a lower arm slot that is essentially side-arm—that has made his sinker even more effective. His sinker-laden pitch mix has led to an exceptionally high groundball rate and it’s worth noting that in 2016 no qualified starting pitcher had a groundball rate higher than 60% and only two relievers induced grounders at a loftier rate. Clayton Richard is a strong play when being offered a price anywhere and even more so at home. Furthermore, few are paying attention to the Padres but we are. They have won four in a row and seven of 10 and their last four wins came against the Nationals once and the Cubs three times.
German Marquez is 4-2 with an ERA of 3.76 after seven starts. Pitching for the Rockies or half your games at Coors, an ERA like that attracts attention. The Rockies are a first place club that is also attracting a lot of attention these days but we’re in the value business and to us, this one sticks out. You see, Seattle was a -140 favorite over Colorado yesterday in Seattle. Yovani Gallardo was starting for the M’s. How can the Rockies be +130 yesterday against that stiff and subsequently be favored here against a superior pitcher and a team that is playing so well? It’s all data based information that the oddsmakers use as part of their criteria for setting lines. The Padres are a team few bet on and that sets up this great opportunity, which brings us back to Marquez.
While Marquez has a very good surface ERA, the underlying numbers say not so good. His swing and miss rate is down to 8% so he’ll be sliding back toward his below average strikeout rate (5.6 K’s/9) from the minors. His first-pitch strike rate is also down, which puts his control and command at risk for further degradation. Marquez has an unsustainable 85% strand rate over his last five starts. At 22 years of age and with only 41 innings of Triple-A experience, some rough outings lie ahead for him and now that there’s plenty of film available to study, those rough outings are going to come sooner than later. Wrong side favored.
