This article is part of our MLB Picks series.
Previous day: 0-2, -1.25 RWBucks (three rainouts)
Season: 41-62, -25.93 RWBucks
I listed five bets for you yesterday and only lost two of them, and that seems like a pretty good day to me.
Why are you looking at me like that?
The two rainouts and one suspension yesterday created a whole bunch of seven-inning games today, kind of blowing up an otherwise interesting slate. I get irrationally angry about rainouts now, because in most cases they take two nine-inning games and turn them into seven-inning games. The cost isn't just one shortened game, but two. I have written before that I think Major League Baseball games will eventually be seven innings long, a change that would fix a lot of the aesthetic issues people have with modern baseball. I wouldn't like it if baseball went to that today, but I'd like it better than this ad hoc approach, one that will see some teams play many fewer nine-inning games than their rivals will.
I'm still not sure what to do with these games from a gambling standpoint, either. They don't cut out the eighth and ninth inning so much as the fifth and the sixth, which eliminates the innings in which a tired starter or a second- or third-tier reliever would pitch. As best as I can tell, the books have adjusted for that pretty quickly, with the totals shaved by more than just 2/9 of a game and teams with the better starting pitcher having their odds bumped up, as the starter can pitch a higher percentage of the game. Marcus Stroman threw six shutout innings today and instead of pitching a seventh against the Rockies a third time through or handing the ball off to a lesser reliever, he gave it right to Edwin Diaz. I can't quantify that just yet, and I'm hoping this nonsense goes away so that I never have to.
So I'm still sticking these games in a bin until I figure them out. Well, I'm making one exception today. That lops a few games off the card, but we still have some good options.
7 p.m. Blue Jays (Robbie Ray)/Yankees (Jordan Montgomery) Game 2 over 7 (-110)
Ray has been a fascinating story this year, posting the lowest walk rate of his seven-year career by an enormous amount. The tradeoff? A dozen homers allowed in eight starts. Ray has stranded 96.7% of the runners who have reached on him, an impossible amount. On the flip side, it's Montgomery, who shut down the White Sox last week, against all that right-handed power the Jays have. I really wish this were a nine-inning game. 1.5 RWBucks.
8 p.m. Orioles (Bruce Zimmermann)/White Sox (Dylan Cease) over 8.5 (-116)
The White Sox kill lefties, a fact that remains after Jordan Montgomery and Kwang Hyun Kim mostly had their way with the Pale Hose over the last week. Their team total is tempting, but I'm going to fold in my lack of belief in Dylan Cease here as well. The walk rate of 12% is just too high not to expect some runs, and one of Tony La Russa's weak spots this year has been riding his starters too long. 1.5 RWBucks.
9:40 p.m. Athletics (Chris Bassitt) -150 over Angels (Shohei Ohtani)
Shohei Ohtani is too inefficient to work deep into games. He walks an unheard of 17% of the batters he faces and averages just five innings a start. That means the Angels bullpen, and that means runs. Only the Rockies and Tigers have worse pen FIPs than the Angels do, just four teams have a worse bullpen ERA. 1.5 RWBucks.
