St. Louis +136 over LOS ANGELES Lance Lynn is too good to pass up on when being offered a tag like the one here. Lynn has thrown three shutouts over his last six starts and one of those came at that bandbox in Colorado where he allowed three hits in eight innings. Lynn just keeps getting better and with another tweak or two he could become a top-3 starter in the entire league. Last September, he was MLB’s most effective starter. Back in spring training of this year, Lynn was the most dominant pitcher in any camp. His 15.1 K’s per nine this past spring was 20% higher than any other SP with at least 15 IP. Lynn’s Achilles Heel in the past has been struggles against LH hitters. He’s taken a giant leap against them this season while same-sided bats have very little chance against him. Lynn has a 60% groundball rate on three of pitches but his 28% groundball rate on his four-seamer makes his overall GB rate of 45% look average. A tweak there, a tweak against lefties and Lance Lynn will absolutely dominate. He’s close, as he’s improved in both areas, he has a 2.90 ERA overall and he’ll face a Dodgers lineup that will likely only have two left-handed bats in the lineup.
Zach Greinke has an almost identical 2.89 ERA as Lynn. In terms of skills, there really isn’t much that separates these two starters. Greinke has more K’s and a higher strikeout rate but he has a higher WHIP than Lynn. Still, Greinke has few weaknesses and remains one of the best in the game. However, Lynn is also one of the best and he’s not the one spotting a significant tag. Once again we turn to value, as Lance Lynn is very capable of throwing a gem and defeating any team at any time. Overlay.
KANSAS CITY/L.A. Angels over 8½ +101 The Angels’ bats remained hot last night with another six runs in the opener of this series. L.A. has now scored six runs or more in L.A. has now scored six runs or more in four straight and five runs or more in seven of their past nine games. Extending that streak against Yordano Ventura is a distinct possibility. Ventura is showing serious signs of fatigue. In April he struck out 31 batters in 30 frames and in May he whiffed 28 batters in 27.1 innings. However, his K rate in June is way down with just 14 K’s in 27 frames. Ventura is coming off back-to-back games in which his pitch count was over 100. This will be the second time this season that he’ll start after successive pitch counts of 100 or more and the last time it happened back on May 15 and May 20, Ventura was whacked by the Astros in his subsequent start. Ventura’s xERA over his past six starts is 3.89 and he’ll now face one of the hottest hitting teams in the majors.
The Royals scored eight last night and this strong hitting lineup takes a big step down in class here. Hector Santiago returned to the Angels rotation on June 10 after a brief stint with Triple-A Salt Lake where posted a disastrous 6.43 ERA over three starts (14 IP). Santiago has yet to win a game as an Angel (0-7) and has struggled with his control with four walks every nine innings he pitches. Santiago has one of the worst groundball/line-drive/fly-ball splits in the league at 30%/27%/43% and he has just two quality starts in nine tries this season. Hector Santiago is rotation filler for now. His chronically shaky control and high fly-ball and line-drive rates give him a high blow-up risk while his fastball speed has declined for three straight years. Santiago’s surface stats (which aren’t that great to begin with) disguise some of his brutal skills but a monkey dressed in silk is still a monkey. Expect some crooked innings from both these offenses.
Cincinnati +106 over SAN FRANCISCO Matt Cain’s xERA never bought into his sub-3.00 ERAs in 2011 and 2012 and it has finally caught up to him. Over his last 42 starts which cover 30 starts last year and 12 this year, Cain’s ERA is 4.41. Cain has surrendered eight jacks over his last seven starts. At AT&T he is 1-3 with an ERA of 4.50. He’s coming off a home start against the weak hitting Padres that saw him surrender six runs in seven innings. His skills with runners on and have been horrible (4.5 K’s/9, 4.1 BB/9, 38% groundball rate) and only a tiny 19% with runners on has prevented further damage. Cain and the struggling Giants are too big a risk to trust as the chalk.
Alfredo Simon has walked five batters and struck out 22 over his last 34 innings. An elite 16% swing and miss rate over his last three starts strongly suggest an uptick in strikeouts is forthcoming. Simon’s skills are all trending the right way. His groundball rate is up from 35% to 50% over his last five starts and his WHIP has dropped to 1.09. In 15 starts this season, Simon’s 13 pure quality starts represents the best quality start % of any pitcher in the NL with 10 or more starts. The Reds are hot with three wins in a row and six wins in their last seven games and this is a great opportunity for them to keep it going.
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