Today is Friday or MLB Opening Day part 2! I did not play any of the noonish games. I find the White Sox at Detroit to be the most intriguing one. Giolito goes against Rodriguez in the DET home opener. Lost of buzz around DET. My number is CHW -141 and the number is climbing to almost there at -136 up from -120. CHW is deep in the pen, and the division champs so I expect them to win the game, but I don’t like the value.
My first play is at 3:10 with the Tampa Bay Rays. Last season the Rays beat the Orioles 18 out of 19 games! This game is a spot where I believe the runline is a good wager. I am on rotation #924 TB -1.5 +115. We have a pitching match-up of McClanahan and Means. First off, Means is inferior with sabermetric SIER and xFIP results so McClanahan is the better pitcher. The important part of this is digging in a bit further to understand that TB should have no issue getting balls in play and great contact as well. Means’ barrel rate is 10.1% which is 2nd highest on the board today. He does not get a league average of strikeouts nor does he get groundballs (the Flyball rate is 47.1%). This leads to balls in play and possibly damaging hits. His repertoire is a fastball and a change-up as his best pitches. TB’s offense is very good against both of those types of pitches with 52.9 runs above avg against the FB and a 7.2 avg against the change-up. BAL struggles to hit McClanahan’s best pitches which are the FB and SL (Slider). Means threw 5 times against the Rays in 2021 and these are the scores of those games in which TB won all of them: 43-, 10-2, 10-6, 9-3, and 9-7). His totals were this 26.2 INN allowing 34 hits ad 20runs! McClanahan threw 4 times and these were scores with TB winning them all: 6-3,7-2,12-3, and 9-3. I like the idea that BAL will not score very many off McClanahan and their bullpen will give many more. Take TB on the RL +115
My second and for now last play is MIA @ SF starting at 4:35. My wager is a first 5 innings Under the total of 4 -120. MIA has a hard time scoring and will be facing Logan Webb. His pitches match up very well to MIA deficiencies in offense but most pitchers will. MIA faced Webb once and it came last season where Webb completed 7 innings allowing only 3 hits with 0 runs. Alcantara is the pitcher for MIA and I think he is great! Both pitchers have dynamic sabermetrics results for xFIP and SIERA. Both pitchers limit balls in play and have great stuff via chase rates and swing and miss rates. The best part of both of these guys is their groundball rates. Alcantara has a 51.5% rate and Webb has a 62.2% rate. It won’t be easy to get damaging hits against these guys. I don’t want to play the full game under only because I am not certain how the new look MIA bullpen will fair. Another note is that Alcantara, in his first games started of the season over the last 4 seasons (not opening day starts), has pitched 25.2 INN allowing ONLY 12H and 3 runs with 22 strikeouts. He comes ready for game #1! Take rotation numbers #913/914 First 5 UNDER 4 -120.
May find some value as the day goes on and will put out if I play anything. I will be on the show at 4:30 today with Jeff. Stop by and say hello. Follow me on Twitter @Webbie20MLB to catch the shows even though they are on all the social media services.