Boston +109 over TORONTO Jake Peavy’s swinging strike rate is stable, but dropping skills and a rising fly-ball percentage warn that ERA could continue to rise. Injuries over the years have hijacked his former stud status but he still gets an "A" for consistency. We also like Peavy’s track record at this venue, where he has a 2.57 ERA and .210 BAA over the past three seasons here, albeit in a small 14 inning sample size. Peavy is not the great interest here. Fading the Blue Jays with Mark Buehrle on the hill is the target of this wager.
The Blue Jays haven’t had a pitching staff this bad since their early days in the late 70’s. From their five starters to their overworked bullpen, Toronto is a team in trouble. Six times over their last nine games the Blue Jays starters have failed to make it past the fifth inning. The Jays picked up Mark Buerhle a couple of years ago to round out their rotation as the #5 starter. Toronto’s ace this year is Buehrle. Buehrle has been lights-out over the season's first 3+ weeks (4-0, 0.86 ERA, 0.90 WHIP). His base skills have been pretty solid too. That said, his strikeout rate growth isn't supported by an underlying spike in swinging strike rate. Buehrle has been the beneficiary of a friendly 89% strand rate and unsustainable 0% hr/f. With only a slight groundball tilt, Buehrle's ERA will soon spike as his fly-balls turn into jacks. Buehrle is not a 4-0 pitcher. He’s average as can be and current Red Sox know him well with over 300 career AB’s against him. Against Buehrle, A.J. Pierzynski is 8-20 (.400), Dustin Pedroia is 12-33 (.364), David Ortiz is 24-73 (.329), Jonny Gómes is 9-28 (.321) and Will Middlebrooks is 6-15 (.400) and is scheduled to come off the DL for the start of this series. Boston holds all the value here.
Detroit -½ +112 over MINNESOTA (1st 5 innings)The Tigers bullpen is a complete crap shoot so we’ll eliminate it and play Rick Porcello this in the first five innings. The power of the pitch mix comes into play here. Substituting a dominant curveball for a blah slider turned Porcello’s skills from average to elite. Strikeouts, groundballs, control and swinging strike rate growth are all aligning together for Porcello, making him a prime target on our watch list. As a groundball artist, Porcello’s fate will be tied closely to infield defense but there won’t be many more chances to buy him cheap. We’re not going to miss this opportunity to buy him and the Tigers at a reduced rate against Kevin Correia.
Kevin Correia has 12 K’s in 25 innings. He has a swinging strike rate of 5% through his first four starts. That’s the lowest swinging strike rate of any pitcher in the game that has started at least three times. Correia comes into this start with a skills supported 5.47 ERA and 1.42 WHIP. Correia was hot in April of last year with a 2.23 ERA but quickly the numbers caught up to his skills and they haven’t let up since. Skills don't get more consistent than Correia’s, as there's little variance in yearly xERA or anything else. Unfortunately, in his case, that's not a good thing. Pitch-to-contact approach minimizes value and 2010 shows how thin margin for error is. Correia’s dominant start/disaster start split is right around the 50% mark, meaning that half the time he’s on the mound he’ll get lucky and hold the opposition to three runs. When he’s not getting lucky, the opposition will score five times or more. Correia was signed to a two-year contract last winter, so he’ll be in Minnesota all season. Don’t be like the Twins and give him any of your money. Dude is bad, real bad.
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