MLB Picks

I'm sticking with this series when it comes to runs. Last night's game was about as loose as it gets, and the Royals' offense has piled up 31 runs over its last two games. The biggest angle here is both bullpens. I backed the Royals yesterday because the Mets' bullpen was already decimated. After last night's game, it's essentially running on fumes with as many as six arms likely unavailable. The Royals are also down three relievers and don't have the starting pitching edge, with Steven Cruz opening before likely turning things over to Triple-A call-up Mitch Spence for the bulk of the innings. If Christian Scott falters for the Mets, this game could get out of hand in a hurry. THE BAT projects 10.55 runs, but I'm not convinced the market has fully priced in these bullpen situations yet.

D-backs starter Jose Cabrera struggled to find the strike zone in his last outing, surrendering three earned runs over 3 1/3 innings against Milwaukee. Arizona will also have a tough time against Michael King, who has held D-backs hitters to a .546 OPS across 62 at-bats. The Padres are playable to -150.

The Cardinals are in a premium offensive spot against Zac Gallen, who enters the day with the second-worst pitcher rating in Batters-Box's current season model. Gallen has struggled to limit power and hard contact, carrying poorly rated matchup marks in ISO, hard contact rate, and ground ball rate. St. Louis counters with seven elite-rated hitters and an offense averaging more than 2.5 first five innings runs per game at home. The Cardinals have also been red hot lately, posting a 122 wRC+ over their last 12 games. With so many favorable individual matchups, backing the offense as a whole makes plenty of sense.

Okamoto's hitting profile perfectly matches up well against Imanaga’s stuff. The Cubs starter throws a heavy dose of the fastball and gets barreled up at a 10.4% rate. The Jays third baseman barrels the ball better than anyone in the Blue Jays lineup with a 13.5% barrel rate, while owning a 63.2% hard hit rate against the four-seamer. 

Atlanta and Chicago send two of the best lineups in baseball to the dish, and they respectively rank eighth and third in wOBA against lefties for the campaign. The two clubs have also trended to the Over, and I'm particularly expecting White Sox southpaw Anthony Kay to struggle considering he's saddled with the fifth-highest xERA in baseball among the 100 pitchers with at least 60 innings this year.