Sports Picks Archive — Saturday, August 1, 2026

Game picks

GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Blue Jays· +141

Saturday matinee at Rogers Centre, and the Cardinals are handing a big-league baseball to a kid who has never held one. Quinn Mathews, first career start, in front of a Toronto lineup stacked nine deep with right-handed bats that have never seen him and can't pull up film on him. The board opened this morning with the Blue Jays at -138. They're -171 now. That entire move is the market flinching at a name it can't scout, and I'll take the other side of a flinch every time. Look at who you're laying that number with. Toronto is 51-59, last in the East, 27-30 in this building, and they've put up 2.8 runs a game over the last two weeks. Guerrero still hasn't cleared the wall here all season — got within a few inches of it Friday and everybody treated it like a parade. Okamoto is hitting .176 over his last fifteen days, Straw .125, Schneider .100. Gausman's fine, and the underlying stuff says he's pitched better than a 4.51, but his team has lost each of his last six starts and that's not bad luck — that's an offense that hands its starter three runs and asks him to be perfect. A price of -171 says Toronto wins nearly two out of every three. This version of the Blue Jays doesn't win two of three against anyone. The bullpen picture also flipped overnight, and I don't think the number caught it. St. Louis lost Friday specifically because O'Brien, Soriano and Stanek were all unavailable after being run out there Wednesday and Thursday — the eighth inning went to arms that had no business being there. Those three sat last night. They're back today. Toronto has gone to Varland twice in the last three game days. And the one Cardinal swinging it right now, Burleson, does his damage against right-handed pitching — .323 and a .941 OPS off righties, 92.8 off the bat over his last stretch, with expected numbers that say he's been hit unluckier than the line score shows. If Mathews gives me five and hands it to a rested pen, that's a live dog. Cardinals at +141.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLBvs White Sox· -175

Saturday matinee under the roof in St. Petersburg, and Tampa has some pride to collect. Chicago put four balls in the seats last night — one off the catwalk — and turned a first-place showdown into a laugher. The Rays send Drew Rasmussen out to stop the bleeding. The White Sox answer with Jordan Hicks for an inning or two and then hand the ball to a rookie. That construction is the whole game for me. Hicks brings triple digits and a sweeper hitters swing through more than half the time, but he's walked a man every other inning this year, and free passes in a quiet park are exactly how this Tampa club builds an inning — they run more than almost anybody in the league. Behind him comes Noah Schultz, a lefty who hasn't finished five in weeks, walking into a lineup that's six right-handed bats deep with Caminero — over a thousand OPS in this building — sitting in the three hole waiting on him. Rasmussen has his own hole; left-handed power is the way to get him, and Chicago stacks five lefties plus two switch-hitters to go at it. But the Trop takes the top off the ball, and this Sox group slugs under the lights, not at four in the afternoon. Their day numbers read like a different roster. Then it comes down to the back end, and that isn't close. Tampa's leverage arms sat out last night's blowout and arrive rested — Kelly, Cleavinger, and a closer who's been close to untouchable all summer. Chicago burned its long man for three innings and forty-three pitches Friday and now needs a short pen to bridge whatever the rookie leaves behind, on the second day of a six-game trip, sixth game in seven, night into day. Games in this dome stay within a run or two, and the club with the better seventh, eighth and ninth wins more of those than the number wants to admit. The price has climbed from -160 this morning and I don't love paying up after the move, but I'm laying it. Rays.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Mets· +113

Saturday afternoon in Flushing, game three of four, first pitch at 4:10 with the wind coming off the bay at 13 miles an hour and pushing out toward left. Miami won Friday night 5-2, climbed back over .500, and got to within a game and a half of the third wild card. New York was a -126 favorite when the board opened this morning and has been bet up to -136 since. That move is what I want to talk about, because I don't think the Mets earned it. The whole case for laying that price is Zac Thornton, and Thornton is a 2.43 ERA sitting on top of numbers that don't support it. Five starts in the big leagues. Eleven percent of the balls hit off him are barrels, better than 44 percent are hard-hit, and the pitch he goes to on four out of every ten deliveries is a cutter that hitters have squared up every time they've gotten a good look at it. He's been terrific at run prevention and unremarkable at contact management, and those two things eventually meet. Meanwhile the team behind him is 47-64 and the club in the visiting dugout is 56-55, playing without its cleanup bat, having lost the season series 9-5, and spending Friday scratching a starting pitcher five hours before first pitch to protect a trade. Minter is already gone. Peralta, Holmes and Raley are being shopped between now and Monday evening. Miami went into this same week and decided to keep Alcantara. One of these clubhouses is trying to win a baseball game in August and the other is waiting for the phone. The pushback is real and I'll say it out loud: Thornton throws left-handed and Miami's damage is left-handed — Stowers, Conine, Hicks. Conine hitting ninth against a lefty tells you the Marlins know it too. Phillips hasn't been stretched past 80 pitches in any of his July starts, which means Clayton McCullough is going to the pen early with Faucher and Zuber both up yesterday, and Miami is 22-32 away from home. That's a legitimate stack of concerns. It isn't a -136 stack. A 56-55 club getting plus money against a 47-64 club that's 10-20 in one-run games with its high-leverage arms in a departure lounge is a price I'll take every time, and I'd rather have the outright number than pay -186 to buy the run and a half. Marlins moneyline, plus 113.

The whole case for laying that price is Zac Thornton, and Thornton is a 2.43 ERA sitting on top of numbers that don't support it. Five starts in the big leagues. Eleven percent of the balls hit off him are barrels, better than 44 percent are hard-hit, and the pitch he goes to on four out of every ten deliveries is a cutter that hitters have squared up every time they've gotten a good look at it. He's been terrific at run prevention and unremarkable at contact management, and those two things eventually meet. Meanwhile the team behind him is 47-64 and the club in the visiting dugout is 56-55, playing without its cleanup bat, having lost the season series 9-5, and spending Friday scratching a starting pitcher five hours before first pitch to protect a trade. Minter is already gone. Peralta, Holmes and Raley are being shopped between now and Monday evening. Miami went into this same week and decided to keep Alcantara. One of these clubhouses is trying to win a baseball game in August and the other is waiting for the phone.

The pushback is real and I'll say it out loud: Thornton throws left-handed and Miami's damage is left-handed — Stowers, Conine, Hicks. Conine hitting ninth against a lefty tells you the Marlins know it too. Phillips hasn't been stretched past 80 pitches in any of his July starts, which means Clayton McCullough is going to the pen early with Faucher and Zuber both up yesterday, and Miami is 22-32 away from home. That's a legitimate stack of concerns. It isn't a -136 stack. A 56-55 club getting plus money against a 47-64 club that's 10-20 in one-run games with its high-leverage arms in a departure lounge is a price I'll take every time, and I'd rather have the outright number than pay -186 to buy the run and a half. Marlins moneyline, plus 113.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Mariners· +143

Saturday afternoon at T-Mobile, seventy degrees, a fourteen-mile wind pushing out to center, and the Mariners walk into Game 2 having lost eight of their last ten. The number has been moving all day — Seattle sat at -156 on the morning board and you're now being asked for -173. That move has nothing to do with the Seattle offense. That move is about the man on the mound. Logan Gilbert deserves every bit of the respect: a 0.99 WHIP, a seven-pitch bag, a splitter and a curveball that hitters swing through at nearly a forty percent clip. But this price asks me to believe that a lineup hitting .229 as a group and scoring 3.3 runs a night over ten games is going to hand him a lead. Cal Raleigh is at .164. Julio has a .486 OPS for the week. Crawford's wrist put him away Thursday, Raley's forearm took him off the card this morning, and the two names replacing them aren't the reason anyone bets a baseball game. Minnesota, meanwhile, has hit four balls out in two days after a month of nothing. Ryan Jeffers is 6-for-15 in the last week and already owns a home run off Gilbert. And Connor Prielipp — a 4.73 ERA sitting on top of a 4.05 expected mark, which is the tell that the ledger is uglier than the pitching — arrives on six days rest having already faced this exact Seattle lineup once this season and left with one hit against him. His curveball misses bats better than anything Gilbert throws except the splitter. He does not need to be a star this afternoon. The risk is honest and I'll name it: Prielipp is on a leash, he hasn't gone past six innings in a start all year, and Minnesota's pen has Gómez looking at a third straight day, which pushes Minter — activated this morning, still finding the clubhouse — into leverage before he's settled. Seattle counters with Muñoz and Speier, both untouched since Tuesday. That's a real case for the favorite. It is not a -173 case. This park squeezes both sides, the total lives at seven and a half, and games that finish in the fives get decided by two swings rather than by whose bullpen reads better on paper. Give me the club that's actually swinging it, take the plus money, and make Seattle prove the market right.

Logan Gilbert deserves every bit of the respect: a 0.99 WHIP, a seven-pitch bag, a splitter and a curveball that hitters swing through at nearly a forty percent clip. But this price asks me to believe that a lineup hitting .229 as a group and scoring 3.3 runs a night over ten games is going to hand him a lead. Cal Raleigh is at .164. Julio has a .486 OPS for the week. Crawford's wrist put him away Thursday, Raley's forearm took him off the card this morning, and the two names replacing them aren't the reason anyone bets a baseball game. Minnesota, meanwhile, has hit four balls out in two days after a month of nothing. Ryan Jeffers is 6-for-15 in the last week and already owns a home run off Gilbert. And Connor Prielipp — a 4.73 ERA sitting on top of a 4.05 expected mark, which is the tell that the ledger is uglier than the pitching — arrives on six days rest having already faced this exact Seattle lineup once this season and left with one hit against him. His curveball misses bats better than anything Gilbert throws except the splitter. He does not need to be a star this afternoon.

The risk is honest and I'll name it: Prielipp is on a leash, he hasn't gone past six innings in a start all year, and Minnesota's pen has Gómez looking at a third straight day, which pushes Minter — activated this morning, still finding the clubhouse — into leverage before he's settled. Seattle counters with Muñoz and Speier, both untouched since Tuesday. That's a real case for the favorite. It is not a -173 case. This park squeezes both sides, the total lives at seven and a half, and games that finish in the fives get decided by two swings rather than by whose bullpen reads better on paper. Give me the club that's actually swinging it, take the plus money, and make Seattle prove the market right.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Reds· -126

Saturday night on the river, first pitch 6:40, and Cincinnati has this series by the throat — two wins, both by exactly one run, both decided in the last two innings on a fielder's choice. Pittsburgh has lost four straight and hasn't looked like the team that was buying at the deadline. And yet the number went the wrong way on them: this morning you could have had the Pirates at -112, and by afternoon the board pushed to -126. When a market moves toward a club that just dropped four in a row, that's not sentiment. That's somebody doing arithmetic. Here's the arithmetic. Braxton Ashcraft throws 97 with a curveball hitters swing through better than a third of the time they offer at it, and his run prevention has actually been sturdier than the ERA line suggests — the contact he gives up is soft enough that the results should have been kinder. Andrew Abbott is the opposite animal. The 3.85 is real; the way he got there isn't. In this ballpark he's carrying a run and a half more damage than he does on the road, he throws a 92-mph fastball nearly half the time and hitters have punished it, and the last time he saw this Pittsburgh lineup he was taken deep three times in five and a third. The Pirates answer with seven right-handed bats tonight, and right-handed bats are where Abbott bleeds home runs. Brandon Lowe is 13 for his last 27. Nick Gonzales is hitting .377 over two weeks. That's the part of the card I want holding the bat. Then there's what's left in each dugout after the starters walk. Cincinnati burned five relievers Friday and ran Pagán out both nights — game seven of an eleven-game homestand, six games in seven days, and the arms are showing it. Pittsburgh went out this morning and bought a closer, which is what a team does when it knows exactly where it's been losing games. And I keep coming back to the bottom of the Reds' order: Suárez, Trevino, Friedl, McLain freshly back off the shelf — that group has been close to automatic outs for a week, and tonight they get 97 with a hook. Two one-run losses is not the same thing as being outplayed twice. Pittsburgh is the better run-scoring club with the better arm on the mound, and I'll pay the fourteen cents I didn't have to pay at five in the morning.

Here's the arithmetic. Braxton Ashcraft throws 97 with a curveball hitters swing through better than a third of the time they offer at it, and his run prevention has actually been sturdier than the ERA line suggests — the contact he gives up is soft enough that the results should have been kinder. Andrew Abbott is the opposite animal. The 3.85 is real; the way he got there isn't. In this ballpark he's carrying a run and a half more damage than he does on the road, he throws a 92-mph fastball nearly half the time and hitters have punished it, and the last time he saw this Pittsburgh lineup he was taken deep three times in five and a third. The Pirates answer with seven right-handed bats tonight, and right-handed bats are where Abbott bleeds home runs. Brandon Lowe is 13 for his last 27. Nick Gonzales is hitting .377 over two weeks. That's the part of the card I want holding the bat.

Then there's what's left in each dugout after the starters walk. Cincinnati burned five relievers Friday and ran Pagán out both nights — game seven of an eleven-game homestand, six games in seven days, and the arms are showing it. Pittsburgh went out this morning and bought a closer, which is what a team does when it knows exactly where it's been losing games. And I keep coming back to the bottom of the Reds' order: Suárez, Trevino, Friedl, McLain freshly back off the shelf — that group has been close to automatic outs for a week, and tonight they get 97 with a hook. Two one-run losses is not the same thing as being outplayed twice. Pittsburgh is the better run-scoring club with the better arm on the mound, and I'll pay the fourteen cents I didn't have to pay at five in the morning.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Phillies· +127

Saturday night in Baltimore, 86 degrees with the flag blowing out toward left field, and the Orioles have a chance to bury a team that's already lying down. Philadelphia has lost four straight and eight of ten, and last night they handed a two-run lead to their bullpen in the seventh and watched Gunnar Henderson triple it away. The board opened the Phillies at -140 this morning and they've been bet up to -154 since. That's the market climbing aboard a team that hasn't won a baseball game in a week. Here's what I keep coming back to: the lineup card. Cristopher Sánchez carries a 2.73 ERA and nearly all of it is built on erasing left-handed hitters — they're hitting .130 off him with one home run all season. Right-handed hitters are batting .298 with eleven homers. Baltimore is running out Mayo, Ward, Alonso, O'Neill, Encarnacion-Strand and Rogers — six right-handed bats — with the two lefties Sánchez actually owns hitting third and eighth. Alonso has punished sinkers and sliders all year, and sinker-slider-changeup is the entire menu. Going the other way, Shane Baz throws that knuckle curve a third of the time and gets hitters to chase it out of the zone nearly forty-three percent of the time, and Philadelphia is sending up a stack of lefties chasing everything they see. Harper, Marsh and Crawford have been swinging at pitches they can't reach for two weeks. Marsh is hitting .116 over the last fifteen days. Then there's the seventh inning, which is where this Phillies team keeps dying. Kerkering has walked twenty-five men in forty-two innings and needed twenty-seven pitches to get two outs last night. Alvarado's ERA is pushing six. Duran is a real weapon, but somebody has to hand him a lead, and Philadelphia has failed to do that ten separate times in July. Baltimore's pen has been quietly excellent — Wells and Garcia have combined for a hundred innings of sub-3.10 ball — and their arms threw ten and seventeen pitches last night, not fifty. The number got worse for the home team today while the matchup on the card got better. I'll take the Orioles.

Here's what I keep coming back to: the lineup card. Cristopher Sánchez carries a 2.73 ERA and nearly all of it is built on erasing left-handed hitters — they're hitting .130 off him with one home run all season. Right-handed hitters are batting .298 with eleven homers. Baltimore is running out Mayo, Ward, Alonso, O'Neill, Encarnacion-Strand and Rogers — six right-handed bats — with the two lefties Sánchez actually owns hitting third and eighth. Alonso has punished sinkers and sliders all year, and sinker-slider-changeup is the entire menu. Going the other way, Shane Baz throws that knuckle curve a third of the time and gets hitters to chase it out of the zone nearly forty-three percent of the time, and Philadelphia is sending up a stack of lefties chasing everything they see. Harper, Marsh and Crawford have been swinging at pitches they can't reach for two weeks. Marsh is hitting .116 over the last fifteen days.

Then there's the seventh inning, which is where this Phillies team keeps dying. Kerkering has walked twenty-five men in forty-two innings and needed twenty-seven pitches to get two outs last night. Alvarado's ERA is pushing six. Duran is a real weapon, but somebody has to hand him a lead, and Philadelphia has failed to do that ten separate times in July. Baltimore's pen has been quietly excellent — Wells and Garcia have combined for a hundred innings of sub-3.10 ball — and their arms threw ten and seventeen pitches last night, not fifty. The number got worse for the home team today while the matchup on the card got better. I'll take the Orioles.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Rangers· +104

First place in the West changed hands last night under the roof in Houston, and it changed hands 11-2. Now the Astros hand the ball to a man making his second start since they cut into his elbow, and the Rangers counter with Jacob deGrom. Every instinct says lay the price with the better arm. The market says Texas is worth all of -126 in that spot, and it opened even shorter this morning. When a matchup that lopsided on paper prices this close to a coin flip, the number is telling you something the paper isn't. Here's what I think it's telling you: deGrom isn't going seven. He's gone 5.0, 4.2 and 5.0 his last three times out, pulled at five in Anaheim with the hip barking, and the swing-and-miss has walked down the stairs start by start — 51 percent, then 36, 34, 30, 25. Texas isn't hiding it. They're managing him one outing at a time. So this game gets handed to a bullpen on the fifth day of a road trip that just watched Marco Gonzales throw 68 pitches, watched Luis Curvelo eat 54 and get shipped back to Round Rock this morning, and watched Nicky Lopez — an infielder, hitting ninth tonight — take the ninth inning. They selected a contract today just to have a live body in the building. Across the field, Josh Hader has thrown four pitches since Tuesday. Bryan King and AJ Blubaugh went thirteen apiece last night. Espada can go get Blanco in the fourth the moment it turns and never blink. Blanco will give up runs. The walks are there, the barrels are there, and Texas stacked six left-handed bats to go find out with Seager back in the three-hole. I'm not pretending that's a good matchup for Houston. But the Rangers have scored three a game over their last five, and they still have to collect twenty-seven outs — and the last twelve of them come from arms running on fumes against a lineup that hung eighteen hits on the board last night with Peña and Alvarez turning the order over all evening. Give me the home team at a plus number in a game the market has already called even.

Here's what I think it's telling you: deGrom isn't going seven. He's gone 5.0, 4.2 and 5.0 his last three times out, pulled at five in Anaheim with the hip barking, and the swing-and-miss has walked down the stairs start by start — 51 percent, then 36, 34, 30, 25. Texas isn't hiding it. They're managing him one outing at a time. So this game gets handed to a bullpen on the fifth day of a road trip that just watched Marco Gonzales throw 68 pitches, watched Luis Curvelo eat 54 and get shipped back to Round Rock this morning, and watched Nicky Lopez — an infielder, hitting ninth tonight — take the ninth inning. They selected a contract today just to have a live body in the building. Across the field, Josh Hader has thrown four pitches since Tuesday. Bryan King and AJ Blubaugh went thirteen apiece last night. Espada can go get Blanco in the fourth the moment it turns and never blink.

Blanco will give up runs. The walks are there, the barrels are there, and Texas stacked six left-handed bats to go find out with Seager back in the three-hole. I'm not pretending that's a good matchup for Houston. But the Rangers have scored three a game over their last five, and they still have to collect twenty-seven outs — and the last twelve of them come from arms running on fumes against a lineup that hung eighteen hits on the board last night with Peña and Alvarez turning the order over all evening. Give me the home team at a plus number in a game the market has already called even.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Guardians· +149

Saturday night on the lake, and the number in this one has already done all its talking. Cleveland was -154 on the morning board and sits at -181 now — twenty-seven cents, every bit of it bought by a name on a lineup card. Kohl Drake is a rookie lefty with nine big-league innings and a line that reads like a warning label; Parker Messick has been Cleveland's steadiest arm all summer. The market saw those two names and moved like it had already watched the game. What it didn't reprice is the Cleveland lineup. This team has scored 3.4 runs a game over the last two weeks and been shut out three times in the last ten. Look at how tonight's card actually sets up: Angel Martinez hitting fifth is hitless in his last eighteen at-bats, David Fry behind him is hitless in fourteen, and the eight-nine holes are Hedges at .176 and Rocchio at .190 over the last fifteen days. That's the back half of the order handing out outs. Arizona comes in 7-3, scoring 5.8 a game over that same two-week stretch, and it isn't just the top — Vargas at .400, Waldschmidt at .406 and McCann at .529 down at the bottom are all producing, and Moreno has been on base seemingly every trip through. There's also a shape to Drake's night the price ignores. The changeup is the one pitch he actually finishes hitters with — a 66.7 percent chase rate and a 41.7 percent whiff — and Cleveland's three most dangerous bats happen to be at their worst against exactly that pitch. Ramirez is hitting .196 against changeups, DeLauter .171, Bazzana .222, with expected numbers underneath that back it up. Drake threw it 16.8 percent of the time in his first two starts; against this particular nine, he ought to find it early, and I think he does. Arizona took the opener, they've got the healthier bats in a park that doesn't inflate anything, and I'm being paid plus money to back the team that's been better than Cleveland every day for two weeks.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Nationals· -171

Saturday night at Truist, 7:15, and Atlanta's already got this series in its pocket — two down, a division lead they've carried since June, and a deadline on Monday that everyone in that clubhouse says they can't control. What's interesting isn't the ballgame, it's the board. This morning Washington was +166. Right now they're +141. Somebody spent the morning buying the Nationals, and the price on the Braves came down with it — I'm getting Atlanta at -171 when the number opened -180. Same ballpark, same two lineups, nine cents cheaper. Here's why I don't care what moved it. Miles Mikolas throws a sinker a quarter of the time and it gets slugged .302 with a .425 expected mark behind it — that's not a pitch, that's a delivery service. His numbers carry no luck gap either; the expected and the actual sit right on top of each other at .348. He's exactly what the line says he is. And tonight he walks into a lineup that stacks six left-handed bats in front of him, against a right-hander lefties have taken deep eleven times in 228 at-bats. Olson hits sinkers. Baldwin hits sinkers. Harris hits sinkers. Acuña has done things to sinkers this year that belong in a museum. The one weapon Mikolas owns is the slider, and a slider is a two-strike pitch — he has to get there first, and he doesn't miss enough bats to get there often. Six starts back he's gone 4, 6, 7, 3.1, 5.1, 4. He's been pitched around all season, dropped behind openers, given long gaps between turns. Tonight he's out there cold with no cover. The argument against me is Reynaldo López, and it's a fair one. He hasn't cleared six innings all year, he's coming off a shoulder that was cut on, and Atlanta just designated the arm that ate three innings for them last night. So they'll need four or five from the pen. Fine — Iglesias, Lee and Dodd all sat Friday and they're rested, and Karinchak came up today. Washington needs the same four or five out of a bullpen carrying a 4.78 team mark that burned Trevor Williams for 63 pitches last night. And the piece nobody's pricing: López's soft side is left-handed hitting, .218 against him, and Washington runs Wood, García, Abrams, Lile and Vivas at him. Their hot bats are pointed straight into his strength. Add a defense that's kicked 85 balls to Atlanta's 50 and this is the better club, at home, with the better pitcher on the mound and the better arms behind him — and the market just handed me a discount on it. Braves.

Here's why I don't care what moved it. Miles Mikolas throws a sinker a quarter of the time and it gets slugged .302 with a .425 expected mark behind it — that's not a pitch, that's a delivery service. His numbers carry no luck gap either; the expected and the actual sit right on top of each other at .348. He's exactly what the line says he is. And tonight he walks into a lineup that stacks six left-handed bats in front of him, against a right-hander lefties have taken deep eleven times in 228 at-bats. Olson hits sinkers. Baldwin hits sinkers. Harris hits sinkers. Acuña has done things to sinkers this year that belong in a museum. The one weapon Mikolas owns is the slider, and a slider is a two-strike pitch — he has to get there first, and he doesn't miss enough bats to get there often. Six starts back he's gone 4, 6, 7, 3.1, 5.1, 4. He's been pitched around all season, dropped behind openers, given long gaps between turns. Tonight he's out there cold with no cover.

The argument against me is Reynaldo López, and it's a fair one. He hasn't cleared six innings all year, he's coming off a shoulder that was cut on, and Atlanta just designated the arm that ate three innings for them last night. So they'll need four or five from the pen. Fine — Iglesias, Lee and Dodd all sat Friday and they're rested, and Karinchak came up today. Washington needs the same four or five out of a bullpen carrying a 4.78 team mark that burned Trevor Williams for 63 pitches last night. And the piece nobody's pricing: López's soft side is left-handed hitting, .218 against him, and Washington runs Wood, García, Abrams, Lile and Vivas at him. Their hot bats are pointed straight into his strength. Add a defense that's kicked 85 balls to Atlanta's 50 and this is the better club, at home, with the better pitcher on the mound and the better arms behind him — and the market just handed me a discount on it. Braves.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Yankees· -125

Wind's up at Wrigley — twenty-eight miles an hour straight in from center, the kind of night where the flag on the scoreboard tells you more than the pitching matchup does. And the number's been busy. Yankees opened this morning as a favorite at -114; by first pitch they're a +104 dog. That's not a nudge, that's a repricing, and when a number swings a full run's worth of value in twelve hours the honest thing to do is ask what changed and then decide whether the market went far enough or too far. Here it didn't go far enough. What changed is the lineup card. New York is on game nine of a ten-game road trip, six games in seven days, two of them dragged into extra innings on the South Side, and Boone finally blinked. Ben Rice — thirty-one home runs, the one bat in that order pitchers actually plan around — isn't in it. Neither is Wells. Neither is Grisham. So on top of Judge, Stanton and Bellinger, tonight's card is Goldschmidt and a collection of guys hoping to still be Yankees on Tuesday. That group has scored three and a half runs a game over two weeks with more talent than it has tonight, and it managed four hits yesterday. Max Fried is the best pitcher in this ballpark by a wide margin and I won't pretend otherwise — but he's thrown five innings and then three innings in his two turns since a two-month absence, and nobody's letting him past ninety pitches. Get to the fifth and the Cubs are hitting against a bullpen that shipped Doval to Pittsburgh this morning. And the wind does something specific to David Peterson. His whole problem is loud contact — forty-three percent hard-hit, a home run allowed in five of his last six starts, most of it off right-handed bats. Twenty-eight miles an hour in from center is the one condition that turns those into warning-track outs. Fried doesn't need the help; he's already keeping the ball on the ground. Peterson does, and he's getting it. Meanwhile the Yankees' only proven way to score in this park is the exact thing the wind is erasing — both their runs Friday came on solo shots. Chicago scores on singles and doubles and Hoerner and Bregman running hot, and that offense still works with the flag pointed the wrong way. I'm paying the moved price, which is the cost of being right about why it moved. Cubs at -125.

What changed is the lineup card. New York is on game nine of a ten-game road trip, six games in seven days, two of them dragged into extra innings on the South Side, and Boone finally blinked. Ben Rice — thirty-one home runs, the one bat in that order pitchers actually plan around — isn't in it. Neither is Wells. Neither is Grisham. So on top of Judge, Stanton and Bellinger, tonight's card is Goldschmidt and a collection of guys hoping to still be Yankees on Tuesday. That group has scored three and a half runs a game over two weeks with more talent than it has tonight, and it managed four hits yesterday. Max Fried is the best pitcher in this ballpark by a wide margin and I won't pretend otherwise — but he's thrown five innings and then three innings in his two turns since a two-month absence, and nobody's letting him past ninety pitches. Get to the fifth and the Cubs are hitting against a bullpen that shipped Doval to Pittsburgh this morning.

And the wind does something specific to David Peterson. His whole problem is loud contact — forty-three percent hard-hit, a home run allowed in five of his last six starts, most of it off right-handed bats. Twenty-eight miles an hour in from center is the one condition that turns those into warning-track outs. Fried doesn't need the help; he's already keeping the ball on the ground. Peterson does, and he's getting it. Meanwhile the Yankees' only proven way to score in this park is the exact thing the wind is erasing — both their runs Friday came on solo shots. Chicago scores on singles and doubles and Hoerner and Bregman running hot, and that offense still works with the flag pointed the wrong way. I'm paying the moved price, which is the cost of being right about why it moved. Cubs at -125.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Rockies· +109

Eight-ten in Denver, ninety-one degrees, clear sky, and the flags in left are pointing at the seats. Two clubs with nothing in front of them but sixty games and a deadline that already walked past them. Colorado took the opener 3-1 behind a vintage Tomoyuki Sugano outing that may well have been his last in purple. Tonight the ball goes to Ryan Feltner, and that is an entirely different conversation. Feltner's last three times out: eleven and two-thirds innings, seventeen earned runs. He's allowing barrels on 11.6 percent of contact and hard contact on 42 percent, fifteen homers in seventy innings, and now he does it at 5,280 feet with the wind blowing out to left. Luinder Avila is no finished product — he walks people, he rarely sees the sixth — but he's running a sinker and a four-seam at 96, keeping the ball on the ground at a 1.31 rate, and giving up barrels at barely half Feltner's clip. In this building, that's the arm I want. The obvious argument against me is Kansas City's bats. Three-point-two runs a game over the last fortnight, Witt and Pasquantino in street clothes, one run mustered off Sugano on Friday. But the contact underneath the slump is loud — Caglianone at 93.9 mph average exit velocity, Jensen 93.6, Perez 91.6 with three barrels in his last twenty balls in play. That's a lineup hitting the ball hard and watching it get caught. Balls don't get caught here the same way. And when the starters exit, Kansas City's pen has thrown four and two-thirds innings across three days with nobody working back-to-back, while Colorado has sent Bernardino out three straight days and Senzatela in two of the last two, into a group already carrying a 5.50 team ERA. The road side was +106 this morning and it's +109 now. I'll take the dog and the extra juice with it.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Giants· -144

Petco under a clear Saturday sky, seventy-seven degrees, the flag drifting left to right off the bay — and a San Diego club that spent the first three weeks of July buried in eleventh place in the National League now sitting a single game off the last wild card. Game three of four, series even at one apiece, season series even at five apiece. This one opened Padres -134 this morning and has been bid up toward -150 since the 7-0 shutout hit the wires last night. I don't like paying for the last thing the market saw. But the matchup underneath the move is worth more than the move itself. Tyler Mahle's season splits cleanly along the handedness line: left-handed bats hit .234 off him with a .702 OPS, right-handed bats hit .309 with an .855. San Diego runs six righties out there tonight and the hot ones are all on that side — Tatis at a 1.055 OPS over two weeks, France at 1.119, Machado with four homers in fifteen days, Fermin and Bowen behind them. Mahle's swing-and-miss has drained away over his last month; the four-seam is nearly half of everything he throws at 92-93 and it hasn't missed a bat since the Fourth of July. Walker Buehler isn't an ace anymore and the 5.13 says so plainly, but the shape of him at home is different than the shape of him on the road — 4.58 here against 5.74 everywhere else — because the cutter and slider are still real pitches and this ballpark swallows the fastball mistakes that got him beaten in Chicago and by Arizona. The lineup he's facing is thin: Chapman won't be activated this weekend, Schmitt's knee is finished for a while, Eldridge is 3 for his last 26 while whiffing on nearly a third of his swings, Adames and Ramos have been dead for two weeks. Devers is the one at-bat I'd genuinely respect. The bullpen question cuts the opposite way from how it looks. San Diego burned Matsui for forty-nine pitches and Márquez for seventy finishing that shutout, so the innings-eaters are down — but those aren't the arms that decide a one-run eighth. Mason Miller hasn't thrown since Wednesday and has been close to unhittable all season; Morejon and Estrada are rested behind him. San Francisco's late-inning answer is Ryan Walker carrying a seven-and-a-half ERA and Kilian walking better than four per nine. If this thing is tied in the seventh, I know which dugout I'd rather sit in. The risk is honest and it's the same one every time with Buehler: he is capable of a four-inning, seven-run night, and if he hands it over early the Padres are patching with leftovers. That's exactly why this is a moneyline and not a run line — I want San Diego to win the game, I'm not asking them to win it comfortably.

Tyler Mahle's season splits cleanly along the handedness line: left-handed bats hit .234 off him with a .702 OPS, right-handed bats hit .309 with an .855. San Diego runs six righties out there tonight and the hot ones are all on that side — Tatis at a 1.055 OPS over two weeks, France at 1.119, Machado with four homers in fifteen days, Fermin and Bowen behind them. Mahle's swing-and-miss has drained away over his last month; the four-seam is nearly half of everything he throws at 92-93 and it hasn't missed a bat since the Fourth of July. Walker Buehler isn't an ace anymore and the 5.13 says so plainly, but the shape of him at home is different than the shape of him on the road — 4.58 here against 5.74 everywhere else — because the cutter and slider are still real pitches and this ballpark swallows the fastball mistakes that got him beaten in Chicago and by Arizona. The lineup he's facing is thin: Chapman won't be activated this weekend, Schmitt's knee is finished for a while, Eldridge is 3 for his last 26 while whiffing on nearly a third of his swings, Adames and Ramos have been dead for two weeks. Devers is the one at-bat I'd genuinely respect.

The bullpen question cuts the opposite way from how it looks. San Diego burned Matsui for forty-nine pitches and Márquez for seventy finishing that shutout, so the innings-eaters are down — but those aren't the arms that decide a one-run eighth. Mason Miller hasn't thrown since Wednesday and has been close to unhittable all season; Morejon and Estrada are rested behind him. San Francisco's late-inning answer is Ryan Walker carrying a seven-and-a-half ERA and Kilian walking better than four per nine. If this thing is tied in the seventh, I know which dugout I'd rather sit in. The risk is honest and it's the same one every time with Buehler: he is capable of a four-inning, seven-run night, and if he hands it over early the Padres are patching with leftovers. That's exactly why this is a moneyline and not a run line — I want San Diego to win the game, I'm not asking them to win it comfortably.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Dodgers· +149

Saturday night at Chavez Ravine, the two-time champs coming off a nine-spot dropped on them in their own yard, and the best arm on the property takes the ball to stop the bleeding. That's the broadcast. Here's the part that actually interests me: this game was Los Angeles -156 before the sun came up and it's -181 now. Twenty-five cents in one day. Willson Contreras took a 95-mph fastball off the helmet Friday, he's in protocol, he's off the card — that's fresh, that's real, and that's worth something. It is not worth twenty-five cents. When a number runs that far past its news, the extra distance is reputation and recency, and both of those are things I'm happy to sell. Start with the arms, because that's what the price says this game is about. Yamamoto's 2.72 is a beautiful number and it isn't the number that shows up in this building — he's 3.27 at Dodger Stadium across ten starts and sixty-three innings, 2.17 everywhere else, and his expected mark of 3.19 sits right on top of the home figure, not the shiny one. That's not a slump, that's half a season of evidence about which version pitches here. Now the kid: Payton Tolle carries a 3.32, but underneath it is a 2.91 expected ERA and a .266 opponent xwOBA — better than the ace's on both counts — with 96 from the left side and 103 punchouts in 95 innings. The market is paying full freight for a Cy Young résumé and buying a rookie's ERA card at a discount. The gap between these two tonight is real but it is nothing like the gap I'm being charged for. I'll be honest about what I'm buying: this Boston lineup is thin. Seigler is 1-for-14 on the week hitting leadoff, Abreu can't find a barrel, Duran has a .506 OPS over fifteen days, Wong is at .148. That's the reason it's a dog. But look across the diamond — no Betts on this card, no Tucker either, Muncy is 2-for-20 with a 42 percent whiff rate, Rojas is hitless in his last five, Teoscar's average exit velocity is under 83. Both dugouts sent out something less than their best, and only one of them got a 25-cent gift for it. Then the ninth inning: Boston used two arms last night and has Chapman at 1.72 and Whitlock at 2.02 sitting fully rested, while Los Angeles emptied 102 pitches out of Irvin, 39 out of Klein, and put Stewart on the shelf this morning. Boston runs — 81 bags to 44 — and Rushing has thrown out ten of thirty. This one gets to the seventh inning tight, and if it does, I want the plus money and the better bullpen. Red Sox moneyline at +149.

Start with the arms, because that's what the price says this game is about. Yamamoto's 2.72 is a beautiful number and it isn't the number that shows up in this building — he's 3.27 at Dodger Stadium across ten starts and sixty-three innings, 2.17 everywhere else, and his expected mark of 3.19 sits right on top of the home figure, not the shiny one. That's not a slump, that's half a season of evidence about which version pitches here. Now the kid: Payton Tolle carries a 3.32, but underneath it is a 2.91 expected ERA and a .266 opponent xwOBA — better than the ace's on both counts — with 96 from the left side and 103 punchouts in 95 innings. The market is paying full freight for a Cy Young résumé and buying a rookie's ERA card at a discount. The gap between these two tonight is real but it is nothing like the gap I'm being charged for.

I'll be honest about what I'm buying: this Boston lineup is thin. Seigler is 1-for-14 on the week hitting leadoff, Abreu can't find a barrel, Duran has a .506 OPS over fifteen days, Wong is at .148. That's the reason it's a dog. But look across the diamond — no Betts on this card, no Tucker either, Muncy is 2-for-20 with a 42 percent whiff rate, Rojas is hitless in his last five, Teoscar's average exit velocity is under 83. Both dugouts sent out something less than their best, and only one of them got a 25-cent gift for it. Then the ninth inning: Boston used two arms last night and has Chapman at 1.72 and Whitlock at 2.02 sitting fully rested, while Los Angeles emptied 102 pitches out of Irvin, 39 out of Klein, and put Stewart on the shelf this morning. Boston runs — 81 bags to 44 — and Rushing has thrown out ten of thirty. This one gets to the seventh inning tight, and if it does, I want the plus money and the better bullpen. Red Sox moneyline at +149.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Brewers· -126

Nine-thirty-eight in Anaheim, clear and 88, and the only thing that changed about this game today happened in an office instead of a training room. The Angels pulled Jose Soriano off the mound because the deadline is Monday and the phone keeps ringing. The board did the rest — Milwaukee was -112 on this game at five o'clock this morning. It's -156 now. Forty-four cents for a scratch that isn't an injury. Understand what actually walks out there instead: Brent Suter, who has 1.2 and 2.0 innings in his two starts this year and threw 35 pitches Thursday, which makes tonight an opener and a parade. That's real. But the bullpen is not the part of this Angels team that's been handing games away. Fermin, Murphy and Bachman went four and two-thirds scoreless last night, Zeferjahn hasn't worked since the 27th, Natera since the 28th, and Brett Kerry came up this morning. The rotation is the leak — Ryan Johnson gave them 4.1 and five earned last night and got optioned for the trouble. On the other side, Robert Gasser is a left-hander whose problem is right-handed bats: .261 against, nine homers in 153 at-bats, and the sinker he throws better than a fifth of the time gets hit at .341 with a 16 percent whiff rate. The Angels are sending eight righties to the plate. Gasser's last six starts read 6, 5, 3, 7.2, 5.2, 6 — Milwaukee is covering the back half of this game with a pen too, and Anderson and Uribe have been up both of the last two days, Megill worked last night, and Craig Yoho got shipped to Cleveland this morning. I'm not talking myself into the Angels winning. They've scored 2.9 a game for two weeks and lost nineteen of twenty-four, and that is not a club you back to go take something. So look at where the overreaction shows up loudest instead. At -156 the book says Milwaukee wins this six times in ten. At +104 on the -1.5 it says nearly all six of those are comfortable — better than four out of five of their wins by multiple runs. Against a team that has played thirty-three one-run games in a hundred and ten, in a neutral yard, with both bullpens on fumes on day five of a six-game trip. I'll buy the win. I won't buy the margin. Angels plus the run and a half.

Forty-four cents for a scratch that isn't an injury. Understand what actually walks out there instead: Brent Suter, who has 1.2 and 2.0 innings in his two starts this year and threw 35 pitches Thursday, which makes tonight an opener and a parade. That's real. But the bullpen is not the part of this Angels team that's been handing games away. Fermin, Murphy and Bachman went four and two-thirds scoreless last night, Zeferjahn hasn't worked since the 27th, Natera since the 28th, and Brett Kerry came up this morning. The rotation is the leak — Ryan Johnson gave them 4.1 and five earned last night and got optioned for the trouble. On the other side, Robert Gasser is a left-hander whose problem is right-handed bats: .261 against, nine homers in 153 at-bats, and the sinker he throws better than a fifth of the time gets hit at .341 with a 16 percent whiff rate. The Angels are sending eight righties to the plate. Gasser's last six starts read 6, 5, 3, 7.2, 5.2, 6 — Milwaukee is covering the back half of this game with a pen too, and Anderson and Uribe have been up both of the last two days, Megill worked last night, and Craig Yoho got shipped to Cleveland this morning.

I'm not talking myself into the Angels winning. They've scored 2.9 a game for two weeks and lost nineteen of twenty-four, and that is not a club you back to go take something. So look at where the overreaction shows up loudest instead. At -156 the book says Milwaukee wins this six times in ten. At +104 on the -1.5 it says nearly all six of those are comfortable — better than four out of five of their wins by multiple runs. Against a team that has played thirty-three one-run games in a hundred and ten, in a neutral yard, with both bullpens on fumes on day five of a six-game trip. I'll buy the win. I won't buy the margin. Angels plus the run and a half.

Permanent matchup analysis →

GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Tigers· +104

Ninety-one degrees in West Sacramento, the wind pushing out to center, and a scoreboard from last night that still reads 13-1. That number did the work overnight. This game opened with Detroit at -130 this morning and it sits at -186 now — fifty-six cents of movement on a lefty's name and a blowout everybody watched. When a line runs that far that fast, somebody's already been paid for the information, and it wasn't me. Here's what the 13-1 doesn't tell you: it was 2-1 in the eighth inning. Two to one. Detroit put up eleven in the last two frames against a bullpen that ran out of road, and the arm that gave up seven of them, Luis Morales, was optioned to Las Vegas this morning. He isn't here tonight. What is here is Framber Valdez carrying a 4.53 ERA and a sinker hitters are batting .302 against, in a park that plays to the hitter, in ninety-one-degree air with the flag pointing at center field, against a lineup that runs six right-handed bats at him — and he's given up ten home runs to righties this season. Jack Perkins has the uglier ERA and the better expected line, with a changeup that misses bats near forty-five percent of the time. Sort those two by what they've actually earned rather than by reputation and they are nowhere near fifty-six cents apart. I'm not going to sit here and tell you Oakland wins this. They're 45-65, they've dropped eight of ten, and tonight's card is missing the bats that make them scary. That's a fair reason to make them a dog. It's the size of the dog I'm arguing with, so I'll take the price that pays me for the margin instead of the result. Detroit is 22-31 away from Comerica and has won exactly twelve one-run games all year — they either bury you or they lose close. Oakland has played thirty one-run games and split them straight down the middle. I need one thing out of tonight: nine innings that stay inside a run and a half. Give me the Athletics and the run and a half at plus money, and let Detroit prove last night wasn't two innings of garbage time wearing a blowout's clothes.

Here's what the 13-1 doesn't tell you: it was 2-1 in the eighth inning. Two to one. Detroit put up eleven in the last two frames against a bullpen that ran out of road, and the arm that gave up seven of them, Luis Morales, was optioned to Las Vegas this morning. He isn't here tonight. What is here is Framber Valdez carrying a 4.53 ERA and a sinker hitters are batting .302 against, in a park that plays to the hitter, in ninety-one-degree air with the flag pointing at center field, against a lineup that runs six right-handed bats at him — and he's given up ten home runs to righties this season. Jack Perkins has the uglier ERA and the better expected line, with a changeup that misses bats near forty-five percent of the time. Sort those two by what they've actually earned rather than by reputation and they are nowhere near fifty-six cents apart.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you Oakland wins this. They're 45-65, they've dropped eight of ten, and tonight's card is missing the bats that make them scary. That's a fair reason to make them a dog. It's the size of the dog I'm arguing with, so I'll take the price that pays me for the margin instead of the result. Detroit is 22-31 away from Comerica and has won exactly twelve one-run games all year — they either bury you or they lose close. Oakland has played thirty one-run games and split them straight down the middle. I need one thing out of tonight: nine innings that stay inside a run and a half. Give me the Athletics and the run and a half at plus money, and let Detroit prove last night wasn't two innings of garbage time wearing a blowout's clothes.

Permanent matchup analysis →

Player props

GARY'S PICK

KEVIN GAUSMANPITCHER WALKS OVER 1.5

MLBToronto Blue Jays· +108

Gausman's control has been the real story of his last two months, more than the ERA. He's walked multiple hitters in nearly every turn through the lineup since late June, and nothing about tonight looks like the outing where that changes. He's at home, where he's typically been fine, but fine has never meant crisp with him — the splitter he leans on is built to get chases, not called strikes, and when he rides it this heavily the free passes come along with the whiffs. I'll take the walks showing up again tonight.

GARY'S PICK

GEORGE SPRINGERSINGLES OVER 0.5

MLBToronto Blue Jays· +106

Springer's the best bat on the field today regardless of who's on the mound for St. Louis. He's been on base or hitting safely almost every game this month, and that kind of form doesn't need a settled book on the opposing pitcher to keep producing — even against a rookie making his big league debut, a hitter seeing the ball this well finds a way to poke one through. I'm backing the player, not waiting on the matchup to prove itself first.

GARY'S PICK

MUNETAKA MURAKAMIH+R+RBI OVER 0.5

MLBChicago White Sox· -188

Murakami is doing pretty much everything right now — ten hits in his last seven games, four of them leaving the yard, on base in seventeen straight. He's a genuinely different hitter against right-handers than lefties, with an OPS well north of 1.000 in that split, and Rasmussen throws right-handed. He's already gone deep twice against this Tampa Bay staff in this series alone. All this needs is one hit, one run, or one RBI out of him, and that's been the floor of his week, not the ceiling.

GARY'S PICK

CHASE MEIDROTHH+R+RBI OVER 0.5

MLBChicago White Sox· -166

Meidroth's been one of the more disciplined bats in this lineup the last two weeks — a .295 average with two homers and nine RBI over his last fifteen games, and he's getting there without chasing his way into outs. He's already got a hit off Rasmussen in his limited career looks, and hitting eighth doesn't change what this prop is asking for: a hit, a run, or an RBI, any one of them. He's found his way onto that stat line nearly every game this month.

GARY'S PICK

KYLE STOWERSTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBMiami Marlins· +135

Kyle Stowers is running as hot as anyone in this lineup right now — four home runs in his last seven games, a recent average exit velocity near 95 mph, and five barrels across his last eighteen batted balls. That's not a guy fighting for line-drive singles, that's a guy squaring the ball up consistently. He gets a left-on-right matchup tonight against Tyler Phillips, and Phillips has a real platoon problem: left-handed hitters are batting .270 with a .796 OPS and six home runs against him this year, well above what he allows right-handers. Phillips' hard-hit rate sits at 42.8 percent allowed and his expected ERA (4.71) runs a full run over his actual mark (3.52), which tells me the results have outrun the underlying contact quality. A hitter seeing the ball this well against a pitcher who gets hit hard and is particularly exposed to lefties is a combination I like at plus money for the extra bases.

GARY'S PICK

FRANCISCO LINDORTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBNew York Mets· +123

Francisco Lindor has been the best hitter on this field for two weeks running — three home runs and a 1.099 OPS over his last seven games, four barrels in his last twenty batted balls, and he already took Phillips deep in this series. Digging into the pitch-type numbers, Lindor's expected weighted on-base average against the sinker — Phillips' most-used pitch at over a quarter of his mix — sits at .500 even though the actual batting average on it hasn't caught up yet at .200. That's the kind of gap that tends to close through more hits, not fewer. Phillips also gives up a .368 expected weighted on-base average on that same pitch overall, so it's not just Lindor squaring it up, it's a pitch that gets hit. With Lindor seeing the ball this well against a pitcher whose top offering hasn't missed many bats against him, I want the total bases tonight.

GARY'S PICK

LOGAN GILBERTK'S OVER 6.5

MLBSeattle Mariners· +116

Gilbert's the best arm on the mound today by a wide margin, and T-Mobile Park plays right into his hands. The breaking stuff has been nasty all year — the curveball and slider are legitimate miss-bat pitches, and the splitter gets guys expanding the zone constantly. He's been sitting near seven strikeouts a start over his last six outings, and he's going deep enough into games to get there. The lineup he's facing isn't short on swing-and-miss hitters either — there's a bat hitting cleanup who's fanning at a heavy clip lately, a shortstop expanding the zone more than he should, and a leadoff man who's ice cold and chasing. Plus-money for a pitcher this far ahead of his opponent on stuff, at home, against hitters who will give some of it back to him. I like the number.

GARY'S PICK

RYAN JEFFERSH+R+RBI OVER 1.5

MLBMinnesota Twins· +118

Jeffers is DH-ing tonight, so there's no catching gear slowing him down, and he's been one of the hottest bats in this lineup — three homers and an OPS pushing .900 over his last couple weeks. He's also seen tonight's starter before and hit him hard, small sample or not, and he's locked into the two-hole so he's getting his looks early and often. A guy swinging it this well, in this lineup spot, with his legs fresh, clears a hit plus a run or an RBI more often than not. I'll take the price.

GARY'S PICK

SAL STEWARTRBI OVER 0.5

MLBCincinnati Reds· +202

Stewart leads the majors in RBIs and he's not slowing down. Last night alone he drove in four runs, including the go-ahead two-run homer off Paul Skenes and the two-run single that tied it back up in the eighth. Over his last two weeks he's driving in a run and a half a game and hitting .307 with runners in scoring position, and he bats second behind a De La Cruz who's reaching base close to half the time right now. I only need him to drive in one, and that's been closer to a coin flip going his way than the price suggests.

GARY'S PICK

NICK GONZALESHITS OVER 1.5

MLBPittsburgh Pirates· +230

Gonzales is seeing the ball as well as anyone in this lineup. He's hitting .377 over his last fifteen games, twenty-three hits in sixty-one at-bats, and his swing-and-miss rate has dropped into the low twenties, which tells me it's contact, not just balls finding holes. He's hitting fifth for the better offense in this series and multi-hit nights have been his normal the last two weeks, not the exception. I don't have anything on him against Abbott specifically, but I don't need history when the form is this loud.

THE LONG SHOT

FRANCISCO LINDORHR OVER 0.5

MLBNew York Mets· +450

He already went deep on this same Miami pitching staff last night, the 150th home run of his career as a Met, and that's three in his last seven games. The way he's getting there is the part I like — four balls barreled up in his last twenty in play, with a walk-up approach that isn't chasing to make it happen, under twenty percent whiff and right around twenty percent chase over that stretch. He's switching into the left side against a right-hander tonight in Phillips, and the pitch he's done the most damage on this season, the sinker, is the pitch Phillips throws more than anything else in his mix. Citi Field plays down for power, but a hitter running this hot doesn't need much room to clear the wall. Plus-450 for a guy mid-tear against a pitch he owns is a number worth taking.

THE LONG SHOT

KYLE STOWERSHR OVER 0.5

MLBMiami Marlins· +475

Four home runs in his last six games, and the contact backs it up — five barrels in his last eighteen balls in play, exit velocity sitting near the top of the whole board tonight. What actually changed is the launch angle: he's been putting the ball in the air more this past week than he was over the month before it, and that's the difference between hard contact that dies on the track and hard contact that clears the fence. He's tied for the team home run lead and pulling away from that tie right now. A left-on-left look against Thornton isn't the ideal shape of matchup, but the swing itself is doing something different than it was three weeks ago, and I'd rather bet the swing than the handedness chart. Plus-475 on a hitter actively mid-surge is worth it.

THE LONG SHOT

JUNIOR CAMINEROHR OVER 0.5

MLBTampa Bay Rays· +600

Caminero hit one 453 feet off Chicago's pitching last night, and tonight he gets a sinker to work with — Jordan Hicks throws it more than half the time, and Caminero has turned that pitch into one of the best matchups of his season, slugging well over .650 against it. Hicks is taking the ball in a new role tonight, his first look as an opener after doing all his work in relief this year, and Caminero bats third, which means he sees him early and fresh, before there's any book on how Hicks handles this job. His power numbers at home this season run well ahead of his road numbers, and he's carrying real heat into this series. A right-handed masher getting an early look at a sinker-heavy arm in a brand new role is exactly the kind of spot I want to be in.

THE LONG SHOT

RYAN JEFFERSHR OVER 0.5

MLBMinnesota Twins· +650

Jeffers has actually gone deep off Gilbert before — 3 for 8 with a home run in his career looks at him, and that's not just noise, it plays right into what he does against right-handers as a rule: a .932 OPS with eight home runs in just over a hundred at-bats against them this season. Gilbert misses a lot of bats, but his four-seamer is the pitch that's been getting hurt, sitting near a .350 expected weighted-on-base against it, and that's exactly the pitch a locked-in right-handed hitter like Jeffers is looking to do damage on. He's been a different hitter on the road all year, over 1.000 OPS away from home, and he's carrying a four-RBI, one-homer week into tonight. Everything here points the same direction.

THE LONG SHOT

DOMINIC CANZONEHR OVER 0.5

MLBSeattle Mariners· +650

Canzone is the hottest bat in this whole game, and it's not an empty streak — his expected numbers this season are actually a touch ahead of his real production, meaning the underlying contact has been even better than the results, not worse. He's gone deep three times in his last week alone, he's a .933 OPS hitter at home this season, and he's a .973 OPS hitter in day games specifically, which is exactly what today is. He's also got a real track record of doing power damage against left-handed pitching, which lines up with Prielipp on the mound. And if this one stays close into the middle innings, Minnesota's bullpen has been shaky enough this year that I like Canzone's odds of seeing a mistake somewhere along the way.

THE LONG SHOT

MUNETAKA MURAKAMIHR OVER 0.5

MLBChicago White Sox· +550

Murakami has four home runs in his last six games, and it isn't empty stats — he's been squaring balls up at a rate that stands out even in this lineup, with exit velocity and barrel contact well above where he was a month ago. He's on a 17-game on-base streak and hunting the ball in the air right now. Against right-handed pitching this season he's been close to a 1.000-OPS hitter, and Rasmussen is a fastball-sinker pitcher first — both pitches Murakami has punished all year. He's been a notably better hitter at night than during the day this season, and this one's an afternoon start, which is the one real knock on it. But the way he's squaring the ball up the last two weeks tells me he's a different hitter right now than his season-long day numbers suggest, and I'm backing the hot hand.

THE LONG SHOT

NATHANIEL LOWEHR OVER 0.5

MLBCincinnati Reds· +550

Andrew Abbott is a lefty who's actually allowed more home run pop to right-handed hitters than lefties this season, and Nathaniel Lowe is the mirror image of that: he can't do much against left-handed pitching, but turn him loose on a right-hander and he's a real threat, twelve homers and an .865 OPS in that split. Two separate ways of reading this at-bat, both pointing the same way. Lowe's also been a much better home-run hitter in his own park than on the road this year, nine of those twelve homers coming at home, and he's in Cincinnati tonight. Abbott's actual results back it up, too — his ERA at Great American Ball Park is a run and a half worse than everywhere else he's pitched, and the quality of contact he's been allowing all year says his season numbers are a little better than they should be, which tells me there's more here than a 3.85 ERA lets on. Lowe's swinging it fine lately as well, .310 with nine RBI over his last fifteen games. I don't need every piece to hit, I just need Abbott out over the plate enough times and Lowe letting one fly.

THE LONG SHOT

KODY CLEMENSHR OVER 0.5

MLBMinnesota Twins· +600

Clemens has gone deep three times in the last two weeks, including a walk-off grand slam against Kansas City two nights ago, and he's not just running hot off mistakes — his whiff rate over this stretch is the cleanest of anyone on this board, so the swing decisions are as sharp as the results. He's got real power against right-handed pitching this season, fourteen home runs worth, and he's actually hit more of them on the road than at home. Gilbert keeps the average down against lefty bats, but he's actually given up more home runs to them than to righties, and Clemens is exactly the swing that shape favors.

THE LONG SHOT

ESMERLYN VALDEZHR OVER 0.5

MLBPittsburgh Pirates· +325

Esmerlyn Valdez has done real damage against left-handed pitching this season, seven home runs in just 48 at-bats, an eye-opening rate for a right-handed bat, and Andrew Abbott throws left-handed. Abbott himself has actually given up home runs at a better clip to right-handers than to lefties this year, so both halves of this matchup line up the same direction. Valdez has four homers in his last fifteen games, including one in the last week, so the ball's been finding the air even though the average has been ugly — plenty of swing-and-miss mixed in with that power, and I want to say that plainly rather than pretend it isn't there. His history at this specific ballpark is thin and not good, one hit in seven at-bats, so I'm not leaning on that. What I am leaning on is a full season of him hitting left-handers hard and a Reds starter whose results this year have run a little better than the actual contact quality he's allowed — which says this lineup should get enough of him to work with tonight.

THE LONG SHOT

HERIBERTO HERNANDEZHR OVER 0.5

MLBMiami Marlins· +450

Hernandez is tied for the team lead in home runs, and his expected numbers say the season line is underselling him — expected slug sits well above actual slug, same story on expected weighted-on-base versus the real number. That's a hitter who's been squaring balls up without getting paid for it yet, and that tends to correct. He gets the side of the plate he wants tonight, too, right-handed against a left-hander in Thornton. The swing-and-miss stretch is the real hesitation here and I won't pretend it isn't, but this is a power bet, not a contact bet, and the gap between what he's earned and what he's shown is wide enough to take a shot on at plus-450.

THE LONG SHOT

JORDAN WALKERHR OVER 0.5

MLBSt. Louis Cardinals· +850

Gausman doesn't fit the profile you'd expect from a splitter-heavy right-hander — he's actually given up nearly double the home run rate to right-handed bats this year compared to lefties. Walker hits right-handed out of the two-hole, which puts him right in the lane where Gausman has been the most hittable, not the least. He's been quiet at the plate the last couple weeks, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but a home run drought for a hitter with this kind of raw power is more often just a lull between loud contact than a sign anything's actually wrong. At this price I don't need him locked in, I need Gausman to leave one pitch over the plate, and tonight's matchup says that's more likely against a righty than his overall numbers would suggest.

THE LONG SHOT

RYAN VILADEHR OVER 0.5

MLBTampa Bay Rays· +850

Vilade has gone deep in four of his last fifteen games and this price still treats him like an afterthought at the bottom of Tampa's order. He's turned into a real threat with runners in scoring position this year, and with the top of this lineup getting on base in front of him, he should get his chances tonight. There's no book yet on how he handles this Chicago staff — first look at Hicks, first look at whoever follows him. The one mark against it: he's been a considerably better hitter at night than in day games, and this is a day game. But at this number, with the pop he's shown the last two weeks, I'm willing to take that swing.

THE LONG SHOT

SAL STEWARTHR OVER 0.5

MLBCincinnati Reds· +432

Sal Stewart is a big reason Cincinnati is up two games in this series, and he's made a habit of it against this specific Pittsburgh staff — four RBI and the go-ahead homer off Paul Skenes two nights ago, five RBI in the series overall. He leads all of baseball in RBIs right now, and the contact quality has backed up the results lately, over ninety-four miles an hour average exit velocity with multiple barreled balls in his recent games. The honest knock is the matchup shape — Braxton Ashcraft has actually been tougher on right-handed hitters than lefties this season, and Stewart himself has hit left-handers a shade better than righties for his career, so I'm not picking this because the split favors him. I'm picking it because of how he's actually performing against this exact team, in this park, this week, and a hitter seeing it this well doesn't stop just because a season-long split says it should be harder. At plus-432, I don't need the matchup to bend his way, I just need one more mistake from a staff that's already given him five hits and a homer in two games.

GARY'S PICK

CHRISTIAN ENCARNACION-STRANDTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBBaltimore Orioles· +177

Encarnacion-Strand is doing more right now than a hot streak usually explains — three home runs and eleven driven in over his last fifteen days, and the quality of contact backs it up, a fifth of his balls in play going for barrels in that stretch. He's also getting the matchup his numbers say he wants: left-handed pitching, where his track record this year is lopsided in his favor, and the limited history he has against Sanchez personally has gone his way too. I'm not leaning on that head-to-head sample alone, but stacked on the platoon split and the way he's squaring the ball up right now, it's one more thing pointing the same direction. Camden Yards has treated him well this year besides. Extra bases feel like the floor tonight, not the ceiling, at this price.

GARY'S PICK

PETE ALONSOTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBBaltimore Orioles· +157

Alonso's compact seven-game stretch has him squaring up the ball the way I want to see before climbing on a total-bases number at plus money — 96 mile-an-hour average exit velocity in that span, four barrels among his last twenty-four balls in play. He's a right-handed bat, and Sanchez all year has been a fundamentally different pitcher depending on which side of the plate the hitter stands. Against lefties he's shut the door — under .150 average, one homer allowed in well over a hundred at-bats. Against right-handers it's a different pitcher entirely, an OPS near .800 and eleven home runs surrendered. Alonso gets the version of Sanchez that hitters actually beat, in the yard he's beaten pitching in all year. One extra-base hit covers this, and the way he's squaring the ball up right now, I like his chances of getting there.

THE LONG SHOT

COBY MAYOHR OVER 0.5

MLBBaltimore Orioles· +410

Home run props are a swing-for-the-fences bet by nature, and I size them accordingly, but Mayo's contact numbers the last two weeks are the best exit-velocity read of anyone on either roster tonight — north of 97 miles an hour on average, better than a fifth of his balls in play barreled up. He's right-handed, facing a pitcher who's been genuinely homer-prone to right-handed hitters all season, in a park that plays fair to pull-side pop. I'm not sizing this one heavy — one swing decides it either way — but the gap between how hard he's hitting the ball right now and the number on the board is wide enough to take a swing of my own.

GARY'S PICK

JEREMY PENATOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBHouston Astros· +129

Pena is running a .431 average with six home runs over his last fifteen games, and the contact quality backs it up — this isn't a hot streak built on bloopers. He's a considerably better hitter at home than on the road, and this is a home game for him. He's better at night than during the day too. And he handles right-handed pitching well, which is what he's seeing tonight. Stack those together and you've got a hitter in his best conditions against a pitcher type he's built to handle. Two total bases just takes one extra-base hit or a two-hit night, and he's cleared that in two out of every three games recently — the price isn't close to reflecting how often that's been happening.

GARY'S PICK

YORDAN ALVAREZTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBHouston Astros· -108

Alvarez is the best hitter on this field, and this park at night is where he does the most damage — his home numbers and his night numbers are both a clear step up from his road and day splits, and both boxes get checked tonight. He handles right-handed pitching about as well as anyone in the game, and he's hitting .370 over his last fifteen games while sitting in the two-hole, which means more at-bats and more chances with a runner already on than a lower lineup spot would give him. Laying a little juice isn't my favorite thing, but he's cleared this number in close to two-thirds of his recent games against a price that only needs about half that. That gap is real.

THE LONG SHOT

JOC PEDERSONHR OVER 0.5

MLBTexas Rangers· +360

Pederson has gone deep five times over his last fifteen games, a real power stretch, and he's a left-handed bat who's actually been better away from home than at home this year and better at night than during the day — both true tonight. The bigger factor is who's on the mound. Blanco's fastball has been getting hit hard through two starts back from Tommy John surgery, and he's already allowed four home runs in ten innings this season. That's a pitcher still finding himself, leaning on a pitch that keeps ending up in the seats, against a lineup with real thump in it. A price north of three-to-one on a hitter in this kind of power stretch against that fastball is worth taking.

GARY'S PICK

KOHL DRAKEPITCHER EARNED RUNS OVER 2.5

MLBArizona Diamondbacks· -117

Drake is in his third big-league start, pressed into Arizona's rotation because Gallen, Nelson, Soroka and Burnes are all hurt at the same time. The numbers back up that this assignment is still too big for him right now. His ERA sits at 5.00 and that's actually the generous version — his expected ERA is north of 8.50, and opposing hitters are running a .426 expected wOBA against him. More than half the balls put in play against him this year have been hit hard, and his barrel rate allowed is roughly double a normal starter's. Last time out against Washington he lasted four innings and let in four earned runs. Cleveland's lineup isn't hitting its way out of a slump right now, but this pick isn't really about their form — it's about a rookie who's gotten hit hard by every lineup he's faced so far, against a team deep enough at the top of the order to keep that going.

GARY'S PICK

PARKER MESSICKPITCHER OUTS OVER 17.5

MLBCleveland Guardians· -127

Messick has been the workhorse Cleveland needed in a rookie season that's already earned him an All-Star nod. He's cleared six innings in four of his last six starts and gone at least six and two-thirds in three of them. He's carrying a sub-2.60 ERA, and even his expected numbers — the version that strips out sequencing luck — still grade out as a front-of-rotation arm. His four-seamer is sitting at 94 and his changeup is getting whiffs on nearly a third of the swings taken against it. Arizona's lineup is capable, but it's not one that's going to run his pitch count up in a hurry, and he's shown all year he can go deep even on nights his best stuff isn't there. I like him to work through six clean and into a seventh.

GARY'S PICK

CJ ABRAMSRUNS SCORED OVER 0.5

MLBWashington Nationals· +116

Abrams has crossed the plate in eleven of his last fifteen games, and he's hitting cleanup in front of a Washington lineup that's scalding right now — Wood, Garcia and Crews are all hitting well ahead of him. He's carrying a .382 average and well over 1.300 OPS himself over his last two weeks, and he's been a completely different hitter against right-handers all year, which is exactly what he sees tonight. Getting plus money on a guy scoring runs at this rate is a number I'll take.

GARY'S PICK

OZZIE ALBIESH+R+RBI OVER 2.5

MLBAtlanta Braves· +170

Albies has driven in eleven runs over his last fifteen days hitting fifth behind Acuna, Olson and Harris, three bats that put guys on base even in quiet stretches. He's cleared this number in over half his last fifteen games. Mikolas is walking in with a 5.65 ERA and a whiff rate that's been collapsing his last few times out — his last outing produced a six percent swing-and-miss rate, which is a pitcher getting squared up. Albies has been one of the Braves doing the squaring.

GARY'S PICK

NICO HOERNERH+R+RBI OVER 1.5

MLBChicago Cubs· +105

Hoerner is running a .400 average over his last fifteen games and he's doing it the right way — an eleven percent swing-and-miss rate that says the contact is real, not lucky. He's the best bat-to-ball hitter in either lineup tonight. He's hitting sixth behind three guys who've been reaching base, so the RBI path is live, and he's shown all month he can produce the run himself just as easily. Peterson is a 5.80 ERA arm who's been hit hard all year — a hitter seeing it this well doesn't need much room to clear one and a half combined. Best matchup of contact skill against contact suppression on the board.

GARY'S PICK

DAVID PETERSONPITCHER EARNED RUNS OVER 1.5

MLBChicago Cubs· -124

Peterson has let hitters do damage all year — a hard-hit rate over forty percent isn't a small-sample fluke, it's the story of his season, and both his ERA and his expected numbers agree he's a below-average arm right now. Tonight gets talked about as a pitcher's night because of the wind blowing in, but Peterson's issue isn't balls leaving the yard, it's the ball getting squared up on a line, and that doesn't care which way the wind blows. He's facing a lineup that hits right-handed nearly top to bottom, the side that's given him more trouble all season. Two earned runs isn't a lot to ask here.

GARY'S PICK

SALVADOR PEREZTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBKansas City Royals· -108

Salvador Perez has four home runs and an .888 OPS over his last fifteen games, and the underlying contact backs it up — he's barreling the ball, not just getting lucky bounces. Feltner leans on his four-seamer and slider more than anything else he throws, and both are the two pitches getting hit hardest against him all season. Perez is a free swinger who hunts exactly those two pitches, he's a right-handed bat against a pitcher who's been considerably worse to righties, and he'll do it a mile above sea level with the wind blowing out. One extra-base hit is not a big ask for a hitter running this hot, in this ballpark, against this arm.

GARY'S PICK

MICKEY MONIAKSINGLES OVER 0.5

MLBColorado Rockies· +105

Mickey Moniak is a completely different hitter once he's home at Coors — an OPS over 1.000 there compared to well under .700 on the road. He handles right-handed pitching well, he handles the fastball well, and Avila is going to show him a four-seamer or sinker on more than half his pitches tonight. Moniak's swung a hot bat this week too. I don't need him to run into one — I just need a bloop, a seeing-eye single, anything that gets him on base once, and that's the version of him that shows up most often at home.

THE LONG SHOT

WILLI CASTROHR OVER 0.5

MLBColorado Rockies· +600

Willi Castro has gone deep four times in his last fifteen games and twice in the last week, and it's not just empty results — he's barreling balls at a real clip right now. He gets the look he wants from the left side against a rookie right-hander, at a ballpark that turns routine fly balls into homers everywhere in this sport, with the wind blowing out to left on top of it tonight. This is a swing-for-plus-money shot, not something I'd lay heavy chalk on — but the surge is real, and the number pays for the risk.

GARY'S PICK

TY FRANCEH+R+RBI OVER 1.5

MLBSan Diego Padres· -122

Two weeks in and France still hasn't cooled off — over a dozen RBI and an OPS pushing past 1.100 in his last fifteen games, hitting cleanup in an order that keeps putting runners in front of him. He's right-handed, Mahle is right-handed, and that's been the matchup Mahle hasn't solved this year; his numbers against same-side hitters are considerably worse than against lefties. This isn't a bet on one big swing, it's a bet that a hitter doing everything right for two weeks finds a hit, a run, or an RBI somewhere in nine innings — which is close to what's already been happening.

GARY'S PICK

MANNY MACHADOH+R+RBI OVER 1.5

MLBSan Diego Padres· -125

Machado's carrying real thump into this one — four homers and ten knocks in his last fifteen games — and the pitch he's going to see most tonight happens to be the one that's hurt Mahle the most. Mahle leans on his four-seamer close to half the time and it's been the softest pitch in his bag this season, hit at a clip well over .300. Machado has done real damage against fastballs all year, and the same-handed matchup that's given Mahle trouble all season lines up here too.

GARY'S PICK

PAYTON TOLLEK'S OVER 5.5

MLBBoston Red Sox· +116

Tolle's on a workload leash as a rookie, but nobody's put a leash on his swing-and-miss stuff. He's gone over 5.5 strikeouts in six of his last eight turns, and it hasn't depended on length — 7 strikeouts in just 3.2 innings against the Mets, 5 in 3 innings against Washington the start before that. The cutter and curveball get whiffs even on nights his pitch count runs short. This Dodgers lineup will chase, and Tolle doesn't need six innings to get to six punchouts. I like the number and I like the price.

GARY'S PICK

SHOHEI OHTANITOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBLos Angeles Dodgers· +109

Ohtani's been the best hitter in this series — two homers and a .381 average over his last seven games — and tonight he draws a lefty he's never faced who has an actual problem with left-handed bats. Tolle's been more hittable by lefties than righties all season; the slugging gap against him from that side is real. It's a warm, clear night at Dodger Stadium with the wind blowing out to center, none of the marine layer that usually knocks fly balls down there. Ohtani's swing is hot at the same time the matchup and the conditions line up for him. This only needs one extra-base hit or a two-hit night, and I'm getting plus money for it.

THE LONG SHOT

CJ ABRAMSHR OVER 0.5

MLBWashington Nationals· +700

Abrams has gone deep eight times in his last fifteen days, hitting .382 with a 1.351 OPS in that stretch, and it isn't empty contact — three barrels in his last nineteen balls in play back it up. He's on the road tonight, which happens to be where his power plays best this year, 1.045 OPS and 17 home runs away from home against an .824 mark in Washington, and it's a night game, another split that favors him. Martín Pérez works off a fastball, sinker, and cutter with his heater sitting under 90 miles an hour, and that's exactly the diet Abrams has feasted on all season — a .639 slugging mark against four-seamers alone. Pérez's ERA also undersells how hittable he's been lately; his expected ERA sits more than a run higher than his actual mark, and he's needed extra pitches and issued more walks in three of his last four turns. Abrams is running hot at the plate at the exact moment the opposing arm is running fortunate. I'll take that combination at plus-700.

THE LONG SHOT

MATT OLSONHR OVER 0.5

MLBAtlanta Braves· +285

Olson already has 29 home runs this year, and the most recent one came in his last plate appearance — a first-inning shot Friday night. He's a left-handed bat who still does real damage against right-handed pitching, .895 OPS and 18 home runs this season, and he lights up under the lights, a .919 OPS at night against .815 during the day. Tonight checks both of those boxes. Miles Mikolas is on the mound for Washington, and he's allowed a home run in five of his last six starts, with a 42 percent hard-hit rate against him on the year and a whiff rate that dropped into single digits his last time out — hitters aren't missing him right now, they're squaring him up clean. Olson isn't a longshot price at plus-285, but a hot, everyday power bat against a starter actively bleeding contact quality is the shape of bet I want regardless of price.

THE LONG SHOT

MANNY MACHADOHR OVER 0.5

MLBSan Diego Padres· +430

Machado has a .461 expected wOBA and a .652 slug against four-seam fastballs this season, and Mahle leans on his four-seamer 46% of the time — his most-used pitch by a wide margin, and one that's already getting hit for a .328 expected wOBA league-wide before Machado ever steps in. Four homers and three barrels in his last twenty-five balls in play says the bat's in a good place right now, and he's got real history against this rotation — .317 with a .770 OPS lifetime off Logan Webb, three homers in limited looks at Robbie Ray. Petco is going to hold some balls up tonight, but a hitter's clear best pitch meeting a pitcher's most common one is specific enough to bet into the park rather than around it.

THE LONG SHOT

RHYS HOSKINSHR OVER 0.5

MLBCleveland Guardians· +390

Kohl Drake is three starts into a big league career and hitters are already squaring him up — two homers allowed in four innings his last time out, and the underlying contact he's giving up says that wasn't a fluke. He's a rookie left-hander still figuring out how to put hitters away, and Hoskins is exactly the kind of professional fastball hunter who makes pitchers like that pay. Cleveland's lineup has gone quiet as a group the last week, but Hoskins doesn't need the group to be rolling — he's found his stroke again the last couple weeks, and he only needs one pitch left over the plate. Drake's been leaving enough of those.

THE LONG SHOT

RAFAEL DEVERSHR OVER 0.5

MLBSan Francisco Giants· +360

Devers is a different hitter by handedness — a .909 OPS and 18 homers against right-handers this year against a .555 OPS versus lefties, and Buehler throws right-handed. The specific way people have gotten to Buehler this year is his four-seamer, a pitch he still throws one time in five that's given up a .410 expected wOBA and a .361 average. Devers has a .393 expected wOBA and a .516 slug against four-seamers himself. That's not a general platoon edge, that's the same pitch on both sides of the matchup. He's got three homers in his last fifteen games so the swing's still doing what it does, and the market's already made him the shortest price on the board tonight. Petco plays big and the air knocks fly balls down, but a hitter running into a pitcher's most-used, most-hittable pitch is worth going against the park for.

THE LONG SHOT

GABRIEL MORENOHR OVER 0.5

MLBArizona Diamondbacks· +830

Nobody in this lineup is seeing the ball better than Moreno right now. He's not just hitting for average, he's squaring balls up and driving them to all fields, which tells me the power is going to keep showing up alongside it. Messick is a real problem for hitters who chase, but Moreno isn't chasing — he's sitting on pitches and letting the ball travel. At this price, all it takes is one mistake in the zone, and the way Moreno's swinging it right now, he's going to get his.

THE LONG SHOT

MICHAEL HARRIS IIHR OVER 0.5

MLBAtlanta Braves· +525

Harris hit a 421-foot three-run homer in his last game, and he's got four home runs total in his last fifteen days to go with a career track record of doing damage against right-handed pitching and under the lights — both of which describe tonight's matchup against Mikolas. The one thing keeping me from going bigger here is his recent exit-velocity reading, which is milder than the counting stats suggest, just one barrel in his last twenty-three balls in play. But this is an MVP-caliber season, a 20-homer year that already matches his career high, and he's staring at a starter who has given up a home run in five of his last six turns. I'll back the recent form and the matchup over the modest quality-of-contact wobble.

THE LONG SHOT

JACKSON MERRILLHR OVER 0.5

MLBSan Diego Padres· +460

Merrill's been the hottest power bat in this series — five homers and a .970 OPS over his last fifteen games. What I like more than the recent total is that his expected slug for the season, .444, sits well above his actual .388, which says the contact quality has been better than the results all year and it's just started catching up the last two weeks. Mahle's fastball rate barely changes between lefties and righties even though his results do, so there's no platoon signal to lean on here — I don't need one with the underlying contact this loud. Plus-460 is close to what he's actually done lately, four homers in his last fifteen games, and Petco's suppression is the same for every player on this board tonight. I'll take the hot hand and the expected-stats gap together.

THE LONG SHOT

ANDRES CHAPARROHR OVER 0.5

MLBWashington Nationals· +700

Chaparro has been on a video-game stretch, five home runs in his last twenty-five at-bats, a 1.447 OPS over that span, and the deeper numbers back up that it isn't a fluke — his expected batting average and expected slugging are both comfortably ahead of what he's actually posted this season, which tells me the contact quality has been there even on the days the results weren't. He's been bumped into the two-hole in tonight's lineup, and in a small sample he's been drilling fastballs, a 1.000 slugging mark on 27 plate appearances, which lines up well against a Martín Pérez arsenal built around a sub-90 four-seamer and sinker. The swing-and-miss rate is a real caution, he's chasing and missing more than I'd like, but the power output the last two weeks and the gap between his actual and expected numbers are enough for me to take a shot at plus-700.

THE LONG SHOT

KETEL MARTEHR OVER 0.5

MLBArizona Diamondbacks· +425

Marte's a switch-hitter who can hurt you from either side, and that matters against a pitcher like Messick who leans on hitters chasing his changeup off the plate — Marte's patient enough that he doesn't give that away. He's been squaring balls up better than his batting average shows the last couple weeks, which usually means the power numbers are about to catch up to the contact quality. He's one of the most dangerous hitters in this Arizona lineup, and I like him to turn one around tonight.

THE LONG SHOT

DRAKE BALDWINHR OVER 0.5

MLBAtlanta Braves· +525

Baldwin has been the hottest bat in the Atlanta lineup, a 1.108 OPS and five home runs over his last fifteen days, and it's backed by real contact quality, north of a 90 mile an hour average exit velocity with two barrels in his last twenty-two balls in play, not just an empty batting average. He's at home tonight, which is his better split by OPS this season, though the night start works slightly against him since his power has skewed toward day games this year. Facing a Mikolas who has let the ball fly out of the park all season, I'm comfortable leaning into the hot streak and the home context over the day/night wrinkle at plus-525.

THE LONG SHOT

DANIEL SUSACHR OVER 0.5

MLBSan Francisco Giants· +830

Three homers in his last seven games and zero whiffs in his last twelve balls in play — when the swing-and-miss disappears at the same time the power shows up, that's usually real contact quality, not a hot round of luck. Two barrels in that same twelve-ball stretch backs it up. He's never faced Buehler, who's carrying a 5.13 ERA and has specifically been hit hard on his fastball and changeup this season. Plus-830 is a long price for a swing that's finding barrels this consistently right now. Petco works against every home run on the board tonight, catcher included, but the gap between how well he's squaring the ball up and where the price sits is wide enough for me to take the swing.

GARY'S PICK

JAKE BAUERSHITS OVER 0.5

MLBMilwaukee Brewers· -135

Jake Bauers is locked in right now — hitting near .530 over his last week with the kind of hard, repeatable contact that tells you it isn't just luck, squaring balls up and rarely missing or chasing out of the zone. He handles left-handed pitching just fine, which matters tonight with Brent Suter starting in relief of a scratched José Soriano, the Angels piecing together a bullpen game on short notice. Facing a pitching staff in that kind of disarray, with the Brewers offense clicking as a whole, I like Bauers to keep finding a hit tonight.

GARY'S PICK

VAUGHN GRISSOMRBI OVER 0.5

MLBLos Angeles Angels· +231

Vaughn Grissom has quietly been the one consistent bat for the Angels in the middle of a miserable stretch for this offense — ten RBI and an .870 OPS over his last fifteen games while most of the rest of this lineup has gone cold around him. He's been the exception keeping this offense from completely bottoming out, showing real pull-side pop and finding barrels even as the team as a whole isn't scoring. Robert Gasser has had more trouble with right-handed bats than lefties this year, and Grissom fits that profile exactly. The price on him driving in a run tonight looks well behind where his recent production actually has him.

GARY'S PICK

FRAMBER VALDEZPITCHER WALKS OVER 1.5

MLBDetroit Tigers· -114

Framber Valdez's strikeout numbers get the attention, but the walks are the real story on his recent line. He's issued multiple walks in the majority of his last several outings — a three-walk night against Kansas City, two-walk starts mixed in against Texas and the Yankees. That's a sinker-heavy pitcher who lives around the edges of the zone, and his command has come and gone start to start rather than settling in. I'm betting that pattern continues tonight more than I'm betting on which lineup is standing in the box against him.

GARY'S PICK

JACK PERKINSPITCHER EARNED RUNS OVER 2.5

MLBOakland Athletics· -141

Jack Perkins takes a 6.45 ERA to the mound and his team has lost all six of his last six starts. That ERA isn't just bad luck sitting on top of solid work — he's let up three or more earned runs in six of his last eight outings, and the number I'm being asked to beat here is 2.5. He's walking into Sutter Health Park, a yard that plays small and hot, against a Tigers lineup that dropped 13 runs on this same pitching staff last night and is riding a nine-run-a-game pace over its last five games. His strikeout stuff has ticked up the last couple of starts, and missing more bats might read like progress, but missing bats and preventing runs haven't gone together for him yet this year. I'll take the field to keep doing what it's already been doing.

Research

192

PARK WEATHERNYY @ CHC
Wind blowing in 28 mph at Wrigley Field tonight
Twenty-eight in from center turns well-hit fly balls into long outs at Wrigley tonight. A total of 6 already prices in that kind of wind, and I'm not fighting it.
P final total 7 vs 6 (under lean)
CUT LISTARI tonight
Kohl Drake
Starts tonight for ARI — 8.54 xERA behind a 5 ERA — the ERA is flattering him.
TEAM RECORDSTL @ TOR
Blue Jays 0-8 in Kevin Gausman's last 8 starts
Zero wins in Toronto's last eight Gausman starts is a strange number for a pitcher of his caliber — that's on the offense and the bullpen, not him. Worth seeing if tonight's the night the team finally backs him up.
TEAM RECORDMIL @ LAA
Angels 0-8 in Brent Suter's last 8 starts
Zero wins in eight tries with Brent Suter on the mound, losers of his last eight straight. That's as much a comment on the Angels offense showing up every fifth day as it is on him.
PLATOON EDGEPHI @ BAL
Coby Mayo (bats R) gets a LHP from the 1st spot
Coby Mayo is a different hitter against lefties — 1.076 there against .489 versus right-handers. Cristopher Sanchez throws left-handed tonight, and Mayo gets that look from the leadoff spot.
P 0-for-3, 0 TB
TEAM RECORDDET @ OAK
Athletics 1-7 in Jack Perkins's last 8 starts
One win in Perkins's last eight starts, seven straight losses with him on the mound — that lineup isn't giving him much to work with.
BULLPENSF @ SD
San Diego Padres pen: 19.7 relief IP over their last 3 games
San Diego's pen has thrown a lot of innings this week, but the fatigue isn't spread evenly — Márquez and Vásquez already gave length, and Peralta's the one arm who's gone out there twice. Fine if tonight's starter goes deep, thinner if he doesn't.
TEAM RECORDPHI @ BAL
Phillies 6-1 in Cristopher Sanchez's last 7 starts
Philly just wins when Sanchez takes the ball — 6-1 in his last seven starts, three in a row now.
PLATOON EDGENYY @ CHC
Paul Goldschmidt (bats R) gets a LHP from the 2nd spot
Goldschmidt's a completely different hitter against lefties, 1.018 there against .584 versus right-handers. David Peterson throws left-handed and Goldschmidt hits second — that's the matchup he wants.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
STREAKCHW @ TB
TB games have gone UNDER 6 straight
6 straight unders for TB — their games are producing only 4 runs against numbers around 6.8. Tonight's number sits at 8.
P final total 1 vs 8
STARTER FORMPIT @ CIN
Braxton Ashcraft: 10.29 ERA over his last 3 starts
Sixteen earned runs across his last three starts is brutal by any measure — a 10.29 ERA doesn't leave much room for excuses. Whatever Ashcraft was earlier this season, he isn't that pitcher right now.
P 5 IP, 1 ER, 5 K
PLATOON EDGESTL @ TOR
Alec Burleson (bats L) hits 3rd against Kevin Gausman (RHP)
Alec Burleson hits right-handers at a .941 clip against barely replacement level versus lefties. Kevin Gausman's a right-hander and Burleson hits third — that's his side of the platoon lining up.
P 2-for-4, 2 TB, 1 BB
HEAT CHECKWSH @ ATL
CJ Abrams: 1.351 OPS in Last 15 Days
CJ Abrams is running a 1.351 OPS over his last 15 days against a .929 season mark that was already excellent. Twenty-eight homers on the year and a total-bases line of 1.5 tonight looks like it's underpricing him.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
PLATOON EDGEWSH @ ATL
Dylan Crews (bats R) gets a LHP from the 3rd spot
Dylan Crews's vs. Left line (.983 OPS, 69 AB) sits well above his .561 mark the other way (150 AB). Tonight's starter Martin Perez throws LHP, the hand he hits best.
P 1-for-4, 2 TB
PLATOON EDGECHW @ TB
Sam Antonacci (bats L) hits 1st against Drew Rasmussen (RHP)
Sam Antonacci hits right-handers at an .859 clip and struggles against lefties, .518 in limited work. Drew Rasmussen's a right-hander and Antonacci leads off — his side of the platoon.
P 0-for-3, 0 TB, 1 BB
PLATOON EDGEWSH @ ATL
Brady House (bats R) gets a LHP from the 5th spot
Brady House's vs. Left line (1.027 OPS, 52 AB) sits well above his .549 mark the other way (128 AB). Tonight's starter Martin Perez throws LHP, the hand he hits best.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
COOLING OFFSTL @ TOR
Jordan Walker: .528 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Kevin Gausman
Jordan Walker's .528 OPS over his last 15 days is a real slide from an .835 season mark, and Kevin Gausman is already his tougher matchup at .811 against right-handers. Nothing about tonight helps him snap out of it.
P 2-for-5, 2 TB
TEAM RECORDPHI @ BAL
Orioles 2-6 in Shane Baz's last 8 starts
Two wins in Baz's last eight starts is a rough number to carry into a series against a Phillies team that's been winning behind its own starter lately.
TEAM RECORDKC @ COL
Royals 6-2 in Luinder Avila's last 8 starts
Royals are 6-2 in Luinder Avila's last 8 starts this season. He starts tonight.
HEAT CHECKTEX @ HOU
Jeremy Pena: 1.286 OPS in Last 15 Days
Jeremy Pena's 1.286 OPS over his last 15 days is well clear of his .879 season line, with 12 homers already banked. A 1.5 total-bases number tonight is worth a second look given that form.
P 2-for-5, 5 TB
PLATOON EDGEPHI @ BAL
Bryce Harper (bats L) gets a RHP from the 3rd spot
Bryce Harper against right-handers is a .985 hitter, well clear of his .617 against lefties. Shane Baz throws right-handed and Harper hits third — his preferred look.
P 2-for-4, 3 TB, 1 BB
HEAT CHECKPHI @ BAL
Trea Turner: 1.109 OPS in Last 15 Days
Turner's at a 1.109 OPS over his last 15 days against a .698 season mark — a real hot streak, not noise. Sixteen homers on the year and a 1.5 total-bases number tonight looks light for where he's at.
P 2-for-5, 3 TB
TWO STARTSNew York Yankees — week of 7/27
Max Fried
Monday's White Sox start is already in the books. Tonight he's on the road at the Cubs to close the week, carrying a 2.51 xERA into it — the best number in this group. Full go both ways — build the week around him.
HEAD-TO-HEADDET @ OAK
Tigers are 4-0 vs Athletics this season
Detroit hasn't just beaten Oakland this year, they've dominated it — 4-0 with a 13-1 blowout the last time out.
PLATOON EDGEARI @ CLE
Corbin Carroll (bats L) gets a LHP from the 1st spot
Corbin Carroll actually hits lefties better than right-handers this season, 1.027 to .727. Parker Messick gives him that look tonight from the leadoff spot.
P 2-for-5, 5 TB, 1 BB
TEAM RECORDMIN @ SEA
Mariners 6-2 in Logan Gilbert's last 8 starts
Seattle wins at a good clip behind Gilbert — 6-2 in his last eight starts.
PLATOON EDGEPIT @ CIN
Esmerlyn Valdez (bats R) gets a LHP from the 4th spot
Esmerlyn Valdez does his damage against lefties, 1.296 OPS there against .869 versus right-handers. Andrew Abbott throws left-handed tonight, setting Valdez up from the four-hole.
P 0-for-2, 0 TB, 2 BB
TEAM RECORDPIT @ CIN
Pirates 6-2 in Braxton Ashcraft's last 8 starts
Six and two behind Ashcraft over his last eight starts sounds great until you remember his last three have been a mess — that record's leaning on starts from a while back.
COOLING OFFCHW @ TB
Tristan Peters: .282 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Drew Rasmussen
Tristan Peters is ice cold the last two weeks, a .282 OPS way down from his .745 season mark. But Drew Rasmussen is actually his better matchup at .791 against right-handers, so a cold stretch runs into a favorable look tonight.
P 0-for-2, 0 TB
PLATOON EDGETEX @ HOU
Evan Carter (bats L) gets a RHP from the 5th spot
Evan Carter's .733 OPS against right-handers dwarfs his tiny sample against lefties. Ronel Blanco's a right-hander tonight — exactly the look Carter wants from the five-spot.
P 0-for-2, 0 TB, 2 BB
FANTASY PICKUPSARI @ CLE
Jose Ramirez
Pickup vs Kohl Drake (8.53 xERA) — .730 OPS, bats 2nd.
HEAT CHECKSF @ SD
Luis Rengifo: 1.089 OPS in Last 15 Days
Luis Rengifo's 1.089 OPS over his last 15 days is a huge jump from a .629 season line. Half a total base tonight is a low bar for someone hitting like this right now.
P 0-for-2, 0 TB, 1 BB
STREAKDET @ OAK
OAK games have gone UNDER 5 straight
Oakland's put together five straight unders, just seven runs a night against a 9.3 average line — and tonight's total is still sitting up at 10.5.
P final total 14 vs 10.5
HR THREATMarlins @ Mets
Francisco Lindor
Gary's Take He already went deep on this same Miami pitching staff last night, the 150th home run of his career as a Met, and that's three in his last seven games. The way he's getting there is the part I like — four balls barreled up in his last twenty in play, with a walk-up approach that isn't chasing to make it happen, under twenty percent whiff and right around twenty percent chase over that stretch.
P 0 HR — 2-for-4, 2 TB
TWO STARTSPhiladelphia Phillies — week of 7/27
Zack Wheeler
The Marlins start Monday already happened. One left, Sunday at the Orioles, with a 2.65 xERA on the season behind him. Start him Sunday and don't blink.
STREAKKC @ COL
COL games have gone UNDER 5 straight
Even in Colorado, of all places, the unders have hit five straight — 12.2 runs a game against lines near 14.3. Tonight's number is still up at 11.5 despite that.
P final total 18 vs 11.5
COOLING OFFCHW @ TB
Yandy Diaz: .576 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Jordan Hicks
Yandy Diaz has cooled to a .576 OPS over his last 15 days from an .842 season mark, and tonight he draws Jordan Hicks on the side of the plate where he's normally a shade less dangerous. Not much lining up in his favor right now.
P 2-for-4, 2 TB
STREAKNYY @ CHC
NYY games have gone UNDER 5 straight
Yankees games have gone quiet — five straight unders, barely over seven runs a night against lines that were set closer to eleven. Tonight's total is already down to 6.5, so the market's caught up some.
P final total 7 vs 6.5
COOLING OFFWSH @ ATL
James Wood: .681 OPS in L15 — draws LHP Martin Perez
James Wood's .681 OPS over the last 15 days (58 PA) trails his .943 season mark, down 0.262. Tonight he draws LHP Martin Perez — his weaker side: a .845 OPS vs LHP across 154 AB.
P 0-for-3, 0 TB, 1 BB
HR THREATNationals @ Braves
CJ Abrams
Gary's Take Abrams has gone deep eight times in his last fifteen days, hitting .382 with a 1.351 OPS in that stretch, and it isn't empty contact — three barrels in his last nineteen balls in play back it up. He's on the road tonight, which happens to be where his power plays best this year, 1.045 OPS and 17 home runs away from home against an .824 mark in Washington, and it's a night game, another split that favors him.
P 0 HR — 1-for-4, 1 TB
HR THREATBrewers @ Angels
Andrew Vaughn
Gary's Take Brent Suter wasn't supposed to pitch tonight. He got the ball on short rest after the Angels scratched their scheduled starter, and he's taking the mound two days removed from his last relief outing.
P 0 HR — 0-for-2, 0 TB, 1 BB
SITUATIONALCHW @ TB
TB's bullpen has covered 16.3 innings over the last 3 games
That is 16.3 relief innings in 3 games, led by Ian Seymour (4.7) and Bryan Baker (2). CHW's pen has thrown 15 over the same span.
P flagged side won 0-1
HEAT CHECKSF @ SD
Jackson Merrill: .970 OPS in Last 15 Days
Merrill's climbed to a .970 OPS over his last 15 days, way up from a .673 season mark. Fifteen homers and a 1.5 total-bases line tonight look priced for last month's version of him, not this one.
P 1-for-4, 2 TB
HEAT CHECKWSH @ ATL
Drake Baldwin: 1.108 OPS in Last 15 Days
Drake Baldwin is running a 1.108 OPS over his last 15 days against an .839 season line, with 20 homers already on the year. A 1.5 total-bases number tonight undersells where he's at.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB, 1 BB
COOLING OFFPHI @ BAL
Brandon Marsh: .360 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Shane Baz
Brandon Marsh's .360 OPS over his last 15 days is way down from .768, but Shane Baz is actually a good matchup for him at .815 against right-handers for his career. A cold hitter catching a break in the matchup.
P 2-for-4, 2 TB
HR THREATMarlins @ Mets
Kyle Stowers
Gary's Take Four home runs in his last six games, and the contact backs it up — five barrels in his last eighteen balls in play, exit velocity sitting near the top of the whole board tonight. What actually changed is the launch angle: he's been putting the ball in the air more this past week than he was over the month before it, and that's the difference between hard contact that dies on the track and hard contact that clears the fence.
P 0 HR — 1-for-4, 1 TB, 1 BB
PLATOON EDGEMIN @ SEA
Trevor Larnach (bats L) hits 1st against Logan Gilbert (RHP)
Over 250 AB vs. Right, Trevor Larnach owns a .842 OPS versus .602 in 36 AB the other way. He sees RHP Logan Gilbert tonight hitting 1st, where the platoon side lines up his way.
P 1-for-3, 4 TB, 1 BB
STARTER FORMNYY @ CHC
David Peterson: 1.56 ERA over his last 3 starts
Peterson's been excellent his last three starts, a 1.56 ERA that's a long way from the 5.80 season number most lines are probably still built around.
P 6.1 IP, 1 ER, 8 K
TWO STARTSBoston Red Sox — week of 7/27
Payton Tolle
Monday's Athletics start is done. He's right back on the road tonight at the Dodgers to close the week, 2.91 xERA on the year. Two road starts, one clear call: use him.
HR THREATWhite Sox @ Rays
Junior Caminero
Gary's Take Caminero hit one 453 feet off Chicago's pitching last night, and tonight he gets a sinker to work with — Jordan Hicks throws it more than half the time, and Caminero has turned that pitch into one of the best matchups of his season, slugging well over .650 against it. Hicks is taking the ball in a new role tonight, his first look as an opener after doing all his work in relief this year, and Caminero bats third, which means he sees him early and fresh, before there's any book on how Hicks handles this job.
P 0 HR — 0-for-3, 0 TB
HEAD-TO-HEADTEX @ HOU
Astros are 7-4 vs Rangers this season
Houston's taken this season series 7-4 and hung eleven runs on Texas in the last meeting.
HEAD-TO-HEADWSH @ ATL
Braves are 6-3 vs Nationals this season
Atlanta's already won this season series 6-3 and took the last meeting by four. Combined with the form they're carrying right now, the head-to-head history isn't doing Washington any favors.
HEAD-TO-HEADMIA @ NYM
Marlins are 8-5 vs Mets this season
Miami's owned this matchup all year, 8-5 in the season series with a 5-2 win the last time these two played.
TOMORROWSTL @ TOR
Max Scherzer: 9.49 ERA vs 6.16 xERA
Scherzer's own expected ERA, 6.16, isn't good to begin with, and he's still pitching worse than that at 9.49. A 37% hard-hit rate and hitters batting .307 against him say this isn't a case of bad luck hiding a better pitcher underneath.
HEAT CHECKTEX @ HOU
Joc Pederson: 1.310 OPS in Last 15 Days
Pederson's at a 1.310 OPS over his last 15 days on top of an .860 season mark that was already strong, with 20 homers banked. Half a total base tonight looks light for this kind of stretch.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB
COOLING OFFKC @ COL
Jake McCarthy: .561 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Luinder Avila
Jake McCarthy's down to a .561 OPS over his last 15 days from an .815 season mark, and Luinder Avila is his weaker side too at .783 against right-handers. A cold stretch meeting an unfavorable matchup.
P 2-for-5, 3 TB
COOLING OFFMIA @ NYM
Xavier Edwards: .511 OPS in L15 — draws LHP Zac Thornton
Xavier Edwards has cooled to a .511 OPS over his last 15 days from a .772 season mark, and Zac Thornton is actually his tougher matchup at .756 against lefties. Not much lines up for him tonight.
P 0-for-5, 0 TB
BULLPENCHW @ TB
Chicago White Sox pen: 15 relief IP over their last 3 games
Chicago's leaned on Richards, Murphy, and Hudson twice each in three days, even though none of those outings were long. If this turns into a bullpen game, Taylor and Newcomb are the only arms back there who haven't already been used twice.
PLATOON EDGEMIA @ NYM
Heriberto Hernandez (bats R) hits 2nd against Zac Thornton (LHP)
Over 92 AB vs. Left, Heriberto Hernandez owns a .945 OPS versus .691 in 167 AB the other way. He sees LHP Zac Thornton tonight hitting 2nd, where the platoon side lines up his way.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB, 1 BB
PLATOON EDGECHW @ TB
Andrew Benintendi (bats L) gets a RHP from the 5th spot
Andrew Benintendi's vs. Right line (.776 OPS, 263 AB) sits well above his .459 mark the other way (36 AB). Tonight's starter Drew Rasmussen throws RHP, the hand he hits best.
P 0-for-2, 0 TB
BULLPENCHW @ TB
Tampa Bay Rays pen: 16.3 relief IP over their last 3 games
Tampa spread the work around this week — ten different arms used — so nobody's really gassed except Baker and Cleavinger, who've each gone twice. Outside of Seymour's one long outing, this is a rested pen.
SITUATIONALTEX @ HOU
15.7 bullpen innings in 3 games for HOU
Relievers have absorbed 15.7 innings over the last 3 games (Cristian Javier (5) and AJ Blubaugh (2.3) the heaviest). TEX's pen has thrown 11.7 over the same span.
P flagged side won 4-5
HEAT CHECKARI @ CLE
Steven Kwan: .982 OPS in Last 15 Days
Kwan's at a .982 OPS over his last 15 days against a .665 season line — a real spike. A 1.5 total-bases number tonight looks conservative for the version of him showing up lately.
P 3-for-5, 3 TB
TWO STARTSBoston Red Sox — week of 7/27
Jake Bennett
Tuesday's Athletics start already happened. Sunday he's back at the Dodgers to wrap the week, 3.07 xERA on the season. Start Sunday — take the second half of the week.
COOLING OFFARI @ CLE
Brayan Rocchio: .496 OPS in L15 — draws LHP Kohl Drake
Brayan Rocchio's dropped to a .496 OPS over his last 15 days from .713, and Kohl Drake is his weaker side too at .657 against lefties. Two things working against him tonight.
P 0-for-3, 0 TB
TWO STARTSLos Angeles Angels — week of 7/27
Walbert Ureña
Monday's home date against the Astros is in the books. He stays home Sunday against the Brewers to close the week, sitting on a 3.26 xERA for the year. Two home starts is a gift — take it.
TWO STARTSCincinnati Reds — week of 7/27
Chase Burns
Tuesday's start against the Guardians already happened. Sunday he's back home against the Pirates to finish the week, 3.19 xERA on the season. Home date Sunday — this is a lineup-builder week.
COOLING OFFPIT @ CIN
Bryan Reynolds: .549 OPS in L15 — draws LHP Andrew Abbott
Bryan Reynolds is down to a .549 OPS over his last 15 days from an .834 season mark, but Andrew Abbott is actually his good matchup at .861 against lefties for his career. A slump running into a favorable look.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB, 1 BB
HEAT CHECKMIA @ NYM
Francisco Lindor: 1.046 OPS in Last 15 Days
Over the last 15 days (49 PA) he is at a 1.046 OPS, up 0.297 on his .749 season mark. He has 9 home runs on the season. His total-bases line tonight: 1.5.
P 2-for-4, 2 TB
PARK WEATHERCHW @ TB
Wind blowing out 14 mph at Tropicana Field tonight
Conditions at Tropicana Field: Partly Cloudy, 84°, wind 14 mph, Out To RF. Fly balls that die most nights have a chance to go tonight. The total sits at 7.5.
P final total 1 vs 7.5 (over lean)
PARK WEATHERMIN @ SEA
Wind blowing out 14 mph at T-Mobile Park tonight
Conditions at T-Mobile Park: Partly Cloudy, 70°, wind 14 mph, Out To CF. Fly balls that die most nights have a chance to go tonight. The total sits at 7.25.
P final total 7 vs 7.25 (over lean)
STREAKTEX @ HOU
TEX games have gone OVER 4 straight
Rangers games have gone over four straight, over nine runs a game against lines that were closer to 7.5. Tonight's total moved up to 8.5 but is still below the pace they've actually been playing at.
P final total 9 vs 8.5
STREAKWSH @ ATL
ATL have won 4 straight
Atlanta's won four straight with a plus-7 run differential to show for it — 6-2 over their last eight.
P team won 3-8
HEAT CHECKNYY @ CHC
Nico Hoerner: .905 OPS in Last 15 Days
Over the last 15 days (57 PA) he is at a .905 OPS, up 0.239 on his .666 season mark. His total-bases line tonight: 1.5.
P 2-for-4, 5 TB
BULLPENPHI @ BAL
Baltimore Orioles pen: 13.3 relief IP over their last 3 games
Baltimore's pen is the most worn down in this whole group — four arms already worked in back-to-back games, and Suárez needed 40 pitches just to finish an inning and a third. If tonight stays tight late, the options back there are thinner than the innings total suggests.
SITUATIONALSF @ SD
14.7 bullpen innings in 3 games for SD
Relievers have absorbed 14.7 innings over the last 3 games (Randy Vasquez (4.7) and Griffin Canning (3) the heaviest). SF's pen has thrown 11.3 over the same span.
P flagged side won 5-6
STREAKMIL @ LAA
LAA have lost 4 straight
Los Angeles Angels have dropped 4 straight, outscored by 7 runs over the skid; 3-6 across their last 9.
P team lost 3-1
STREAKMIA @ NYM
NYM games have gone UNDER 4 straight
Mets games have gone under four straight, under five runs a night — and tonight's total is still parked way up at 9. That's a big enough gap between the recent trend and the number to notice.
P final total 8 vs 9
TWO STARTSNew York Yankees — week of 7/27
Gerrit Cole
Tuesday's White Sox start is banked. Sunday closes the week at the Cubs, 3.29 xERA on the season — the highest number in this tier, but he's still in it. Bottom of the tier is still start him Sunday.
COOLING OFFSTL @ TOR
Ivan Herrera: .542 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Kevin Gausman
Ivan Herrera's .542 OPS over the last 15 days (60 PA) trails his .740 season mark, down 0.198. Tonight he draws RHP Kevin Gausman — his weaker side: a .706 OPS vs RHP across 289 AB.
P 1-for-4, 2 TB
PLATOON EDGESTL @ TOR
Lars Nootbaar (bats L) gets a RHP from the 5th spot
Lars Nootbaar's vs. Right line (.749 OPS, 119 AB) sits well above his .483 mark the other way (30 AB). Tonight's starter Kevin Gausman throws RHP, the hand he hits best.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
TWO STARTSDetroit Tigers — week of 7/27
Keider Montero
Monday's home start against the Orioles already happened. Sunday he's on the road at the Athletics to finish the week, 3.48 xERA on the season — the softest number here. Streamer only — matchup fill, not a must-own.
FANTASY PICKUPSARI @ CLE
Austin Hedges
Pickup vs Kohl Drake (8.53 xERA) — .742 OPS, bats 8th.
REGRESSIONDET @ OAK
Jack Perkins: 6.45 ERA vs 4.05 xERA
Perkins's ERA is 6.45, but a 10.5 strikeout rate and reasonable contact numbers say his expected mark, 4.05, is closer to the truth. Walks and bad timing look like the bigger issue here than his actual stuff.
P 5.1 IP, 6 ER, 9 K
PARK WEATHERMIA @ NYM
Wind blowing out 13 mph at Citi Field tonight
Tonight's reading at Citi Field — Partly Cloudy, 82°, wind 13 mph, Out To LF. Everything about the air says carry. The total sits at 9.
P final total 8 vs 9 (over lean)
COOLING OFFMIA @ NYM
Otto Lopez: .556 OPS in L15 — draws LHP Zac Thornton
Otto Lopez's .556 OPS over the last 15 days (48 PA) trails his .838 season mark, down 0.282. Tonight he draws LHP Zac Thornton — his stronger side: a .954 OPS vs LHP across 103 AB.
P 1-for-4, 2 TB
FANTASY PICKUPSTEX @ HOU
Wyatt Langford
Pickup vs Ronel Blanco (6.78 xERA) — .822 OPS, bats 2nd.
HEAT CHECKCHW @ TB
Nick Fortes: 1.123 OPS in Last 15 Days
The last 15 days sample runs 29 PA: a 1.123 OPS versus .699 for the season, 0.424 above his norm. His total-bases line tonight: 0.5.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB
STARTER FORMPHI @ BAL
Cristopher Sanchez: 5.84 ERA over his last 3 starts
Sanchez's last three starts haven't matched his season number — 5.84 ERA against a 2.73 mark, even with Philly still winning behind him. Team record and personal form are pulling in different directions right now.
P 6 IP, 0 ER, 11 K
CUT LISTHOU tonight
Ronel Blanco
Starts tonight for HOU — 6.78 xERA behind a 8.1 ERA.
FANTASY PICKUPSARI @ CLE
Travis Bazzana
Pickup vs Kohl Drake (8.53 xERA) — .729 OPS, bats 7th.
BULLPENMIL @ LAA
Los Angeles Angels pen: 12.7 relief IP over their last 3 games
The Angels' pen threw the fewest total innings of any group here, but that's deceiving — four of their top arms have already pitched twice this week. Natera and Murphy are the only two who haven't been touched twice, so they're the real fresh options tonight.
REGRESSIONMIA @ NYM
Zac Thornton: 2.43 ERA vs 4.55 xERA
A 2.43 ERA sounds great until you see Thornton's 4.55 expected mark sitting more than two runs higher — a 44% hard-hit rate doesn't usually pair with a .196 average against for long. The cushion here looks thinner than the ERA lets on.
P 4.2 IP, 3 ER, 2 K
STARTER FORMSF @ SD
Tyler Mahle: 2.00 ERA over his last 3 starts
Forget the 4.96 season number — Mahle's thrown to a 2.00 ERA over his last three starts, a completely different pitcher than his full-year line suggests.
P 5.2 IP, 5 ER, 9 K
SITUATIONALPIT @ CIN
PIT's pen has logged 13.7 innings across its last 3 games
3 games, 13.7 innings out of the pen — Carmen Mlodzinski (3) and Hunter Barco (3) carried the load. CIN's pen has thrown 10.7 over the same span.
P flagged side won 4-1
SITUATIONALPHI @ BAL
BAL's bullpen has covered 13.3 innings over the last 3 games
That is 13.3 relief innings in 3 games, led by Tyler Wells (3) and Josh Walker (2.3). PHI's pen has thrown only 6 over the same span.
P flagged side lost 5-0
HEAT CHECKSTL @ TOR
George Springer: .951 OPS in Last 15 Days
The last 15 days sample runs 49 PA: a .951 OPS versus .721 for the season, 0.23 above his norm. He has 12 home runs on the season. His total-bases line tonight: 1.5.
P 2-for-4, 3 TB
REGRESSIONWSH @ ATL
Reynaldo Lopez: 5.79 ERA vs 3.72 xERA
Lopez's 5.79 ERA is running well past his own expected mark of 3.72 — a fifty-five-point gap between his actual and expected average against points more toward bad luck on balls in play than bad stuff. He's got a Braves team on a four-game win streak behind him tonight, which is a good spot for the numbers to start evening out.
BULLPENBOS @ LAD
Los Angeles Dodgers pen: 14.7 relief IP over their last 3 games
The Dodgers' bullpen story this week is really just Cole Irvin — six innings on 102 pitches in a single outing, basically a spot start. Outside of that, Scott and Díaz carry the only real mileage, while Dreyer's about as fresh as anyone can be.
TOMORROWARI @ CLE
Merrill Kelly: 4.86 ERA vs 7.18 xERA
A 4.86 ERA isn't good, but it's actually flattering Kelly — his expected mark is 7.18, and a 45% hard-hit rate backs up why hitters have squared him up all year.
PLATOON EDGEMIA @ NYM
Otto Lopez (bats R) draws Zac Thornton (LHP), batting 1st
Otto Lopez carries a .954 OPS vs. Left (103 AB) against .801 the other way (325 AB), and faces LHP Zac Thornton from the 1st spot — a split his blended season line may not reflect.
P 1-for-4, 2 TB
BATTER VS ARMTEX @ HOU
Jacob deGrom vs Christian Walker: 1-for-18, 9 K
Jacob deGrom has owned Christian Walker across their careers, 1-for-18 with 9 strikeouts. That history is squarely in deGrom's favor before a pitch is thrown tonight.
P 2-for-4, 3 TB, 1 BB
TOMORROWSTL @ TOR
Michael McGreevy: 3.57 ERA vs 5.67 xERA
McGreevy's 3.57 ERA looks like a strong season, but his 5.67 expected mark says hitters have been squaring him up more than the results let on. That's usually not a gap that holds for a full season.
BULLPENDET @ OAK
Detroit Tigers pen: 14.3 relief IP over their last 3 games
Ty Madden has been Detroit's real workhorse in this pen, throwing 83 pitches across two separate outings for 5 total innings — that's two different multi-inning stints, not one bulk outing, so he's absorbed a lot of the recent load without it all coming in one appearance. Drew Sommers is the one true back-to-back concern: he pitched in each of the last two days, totaling 3 innings on 35 pitches across those two outings, which usually means he's the least likely to be available again tonight or good for only a short look. The rest of the group has been used carefully — De Jesus, Waguespack, Anderson, and Jansen have all appeared just once in the three games, with Anderson the only one who needed a lot of pitches for his innings, 30 for 1.3, suggesting some traffic in that outing. With Madden already carrying real length and Sommers on the two-days-in-a-row workload, Detroit's freshest options tonight against Oakland are the one-outing arms, plus Jansen if it turns into a save situation.
RUNNING GAMEPIT @ CIN
Cincinnati Reds like to run — Henry Davis (48% caught) is the wrong catcher to test
Cincinnati runs regardless of who's behind the plate, and Henry Davis has caught just 48% of basestealers. That's an aggressive running team testing a catcher who hasn't stopped many of them.
P Cincinnati Reds stole 1 base
COOLING OFFMIN @ SEA
Colt Emerson: .356 OPS in L15 — draws LHP Connor Prielipp
Colt Emerson's .356 OPS over the last 15 days (44 PA) trails his .598 season mark, down 0.242. Tonight he draws LHP Connor Prielipp — his stronger side: a .654 OPS vs LHP across 54 AB.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB
SITUATIONALSTL @ TOR
12.7 bullpen innings in 3 games for TOR
Relievers have absorbed 12.7 innings over the last 3 games (CJ Van Eyk (3.3) and Louis Varland (3) the heaviest). STL's pen has thrown 10.7 over the same span.
P flagged side won 1-5
COOLING OFFCHW @ TB
Miguel Vargas: .689 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Drew Rasmussen
Miguel Vargas's .689 OPS over the last 15 days (57 PA) trails his .826 season mark, down 0.137. Tonight he draws RHP Drew Rasmussen — his weaker side: a .782 OPS vs RHP across 278 AB.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
HEAT CHECKMIN @ SEA
Cole Young: .901 OPS in Last 15 Days
That .901 OPS spans the last 15 days (55 PA) against a .733 season baseline, a 0.168 swing. He has 14 home runs on the season. His total-bases line tonight: 1.5.
P 2-for-5, 3 TB
HEAT CHECKARI @ CLE
Ryan Waldschmidt: 1.019 OPS in Last 15 Days
The last 15 days sample runs 32 PA: a 1.019 OPS versus .730 for the season, 0.289 above his norm. His total-bases line tonight: 0.5.
P 2-for-3, 2 TB
BALLPARKPIT @ CIN
At Great American Ball Park, Andrew Abbott pitches to a 5.05 ERA
Abbott's actually worse at home than away, which isn't the usual pattern — a 5.05 ERA at Great American against a tidy 2.89 on the road. That's exactly the version of him on the mound again tonight.
P 5 IP, 3 ER, 1 K
CLOSER WATCHNYY @ CHC
Jacob Webb / Daniel Palencia
Shared ninth in CHC: Jacob Webb 5 saves, Daniel Palencia 3. The role is live.
CLOSER WATCHKC @ COL
Lucas Erceg / Alex Lange
Shared ninth in KC: Lucas Erceg 12 saves, Alex Lange 10. The role is live.
CLOSER WATCHMIL @ LAA
Ryan Zeferjahn / Kirby Yates
Shared ninth in LAA: Ryan Zeferjahn 3 saves, Kirby Yates 3. The role is live.
PARK WEATHERPHI @ BAL
Wind blowing out 11 mph at Oriole Park at Camden Yards tonight
Wind's pushing out to left at Camden tonight, exactly the kind of night a routine fly ball sneaks over the fence. Total's sitting at 8 — I'd lean toward the hitters getting the better of this one.
P final total 5 vs 8 (over lean)
REGRESSIONKC @ COL
Mickey Moniak: .278 AVG vs .227 xBA
There's a real gap between what Moniak's hitting and what he's actually earned on contact quality. I'm not chasing this average until that gap closes.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
RUNNING GAMEMIA @ NYM
Miami Marlins like to run — Luis Torrens (41% caught) is the wrong catcher to test
Torrens actually has one of the better arms behind the plate this year, throwing out 41 percent of runners, and Miami keeps running anyway. I like his half of that matchup — somebody in a Marlins uniform gets hosed tonight.
P Miami Marlins stole 2 bases
RETURN WATCHTEX — return listed 8/1
Robert Garcia
Listed back 8/1 (60-Day-IL, shoulder) — 3.38 ERA this season.
SITUATIONALDET @ OAK
DET's pen has logged 12 innings across its last 3 games
3 games, 12 innings out of the pen — Jacob Waguespack (3.7) and Drew Anderson (3) carried the load. OAK's pen has thrown 11.7 over the same span.
P flagged side won 8-6
RETURN WATCHARI — return listed 8/1
Jordan Lawlar
Listed back 8/1 (10-Day-IL, hamstring) — 0.856 OPS this season.
REGRESSIONPIT @ CIN
Esmerlyn Valdez: .271 AVG vs .223 xBA
Nearly fifty points separate what Esmerlyn Valdez is hitting from what his contact quality supports. Nice stretch for him, but I wouldn't bet on it lasting.
P 0-for-2, 0 TB, 2 BB
RETURN WATCHBAL — return listed 8/1
Ryan Mountcastle
Listed back 8/1 (60-Day-IL, foot) — 0.690 OPS this season.
REGRESSIONPIT @ CIN
Jake Mangum: .304 AVG vs .259 xBA
Mangum's been a tougher out than his contact deserves all year, a forty-five-point gap between what he's hitting and what he's earned. I'll trust the .259 before I trust the .304.
P 2-for-5, 2 TB
TOMORROWKC @ COL
Kyle Freeland: 7.34 ERA vs 5.63 xERA
Freeland's results and process actually agree for once, and neither one is good — a 7.34 ERA with a 5.63 expected mark right behind it, both backed by heavy contact allowed. There's no better pitcher hiding underneath this line.
REGRESSIONNYY @ CHC
Nico Hoerner: .255 AVG vs .299 xBA
Here's one going the other way: the contact says Hoerner should be near .300, not .255 — he's getting robbed instead of gifted. Tonight's as good a spot as any for that to start turning.
P 2-for-4, 5 TB
REGRESSIONKC @ COL
Cole Carrigg: .296 AVG vs .253 xBA
More than forty points separate Carrigg's average from what his contact quality supports. Fun to watch right now, but I wouldn't trust it holding at this level.
P 0-for-2, 0 TB, 3 BB
COOLING OFFMIN @ SEA
Victor Caratini: .429 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Logan Gilbert
Victor Caratini's .429 OPS over the last 15 days (35 PA) trails his .669 season mark, down 0.24. Tonight he draws RHP Logan Gilbert — his stronger side: a .689 OPS vs RHP across 174 AB.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
PARK WEATHERPIT @ CIN
Wind blowing in 10 mph at Great American Ball Park tonight
Wind's blowing straight in at Great American tonight, and that park already leans toward pitchers when the air's dead. Total's at 8 and I think the under crowd has the better of it.
P final total 5 vs 8 (under lean)
BATTER VS ARMTEX @ HOU
Jeremy Pena vs Jacob deGrom: .400
Pena's already got deGrom's number, 4 for 10 with real pop in that history, and he's swinging a hot bat right now on top of it. Short history against one arm, but everything here points the same direction for him tonight.
P 2-for-5, 5 TB
REGRESSIONTEX @ HOU
Corey Seager: .189 AVG vs .229 xBA
Corey Seager is hitting .189 against a .229 expected average (xBA) over 222 plate appearances. His wOBA sits at .299 against a .339 expected (xwOBA). Statcast grades the quality of his contact rather than the results, and the expected marks sit above what he has actually posted.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB, 1 BB
RETURN WATCHNYM — return listed 8/2
Clay Holmes
Listed back 8/2 (60-Day-IL, lower leg) — 2.39 ERA this season.
STARTER FORMDET @ OAK
Framber Valdez: 6.39 ERA over his last 3 starts
Valdez has stepped back over his last three starts, a 6.39 ERA against a 4.53 season mark. That's a real dip from where his year-long number says he should be.
P 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 K
FANTASY PICKUPSCHW @ TB
Drew Rasmussen
Streamer vs CHW — 3.12 xERA · 9.1 K/9 · 0.93 WHIP.
CUT LISTSD tonight
Jake Cronenworth
Still hitting 2th for SD — 0.592 OPS, 0.210 AVG from the 2-hole.
CUT LISTCOL tonight
Ryan Feltner
Starts tonight for COL — 5.86 xERA behind a 5.73 ERA.
REGRESSIONMIA @ NYM
Marcus Semien: .210 AVG vs .247 xBA
Across 358 plate appearances, Marcus Semien carries a .210 average versus a .247 xBA. His wOBA sits at .272 against a .308 expected (xwOBA). Statcast grades the quality of his contact rather than the results, and the expected marks sit above what he has actually posted.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
CUT LISTOAK tonight
Tommy White
Still hitting 4th for OAK — 0.604 OPS, 0.269 AVG from the 4-hole.
STARTER FORMMIL @ LAA
Robert Gasser: 6.43 ERA over his last 3 starts
The last 3 times out: 14 innings, 10 earned runs, 16 hits. That 6.43 ERA runs 1.72 over his 4.71 season number.
P 5 IP, 1 ER, 6 K
HEAT CHECKCHW @ TB
Chandler Simpson: .815 OPS in Last 15 Days
Over the last 15 days (46 PA) he is at a .815 OPS, up 0.141 on his .674 season mark. His total-bases line tonight: 1.5.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB
STARTER FORMWSH @ ATL
Reynaldo Lopez: 5.40 ERA over his last 3 starts
Lopez's last three starts have looked rough on paper, 5.40 ERA, but that's the same stretch where his expected ERA is sitting almost two runs lower. The results and the process aren't telling the same story with him right now.
BATTER VS ARMNYY @ CHC
Max Fried vs Seiya Suzuki: 1-for-11, 5 K
Fried has flat-out owned Suzuki for years, 1 for 11 with five strikeouts across their history. Doesn't guarantee tonight, but that's about as clean a track record as a pitcher gets over a hitter.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB, 1 BB
REGRESSIONMIA @ NYM
Tyler Phillips: 3.52 ERA vs 4.71 xERA
Phillips is beating his expected ERA by about a run, but it's a mild case — nothing in the contact numbers looks extreme enough to call it borrowed time.
P 5 IP, 2 ER, 3 K
HEAT CHECKCHW @ TB
Chase Meidroth: .885 OPS in Last 15 Days
That .885 OPS spans the last 15 days (44 PA) against a .739 season baseline, a 0.146 swing. He has 9 home runs on the season. His total-bases line tonight: 0.5.
P 0-for-3, 0 TB
BULLPENPIT @ CIN
Pittsburgh Pirates pen: 13.7 relief IP over their last 3 games
Pittsburgh's recent relief innings are concentrated in a handful of longer outings — Antwone Kelly, Hunter Barco, and Carmen Mlodzinski each turned in three-inning stints in their one appearance, with Barco needing 72 pitches to do it, a heavy total for a single relief outing. Noah Murdock also went long in his one appearance, using 45 pitches to cover 2 innings, so between him, Kelly, Barco, and Mlodzinski, that's four different arms already stretched past a normal relief look in just the last three games. Mason Montgomery is the only reliever who's pitched in each of the last two days, though his workload has been light each time, 1.7 total innings on 19 pitches across those two outings, so he's more of a scheduling concern than a stress one. Gregory Soto's one outing was short but not clean, needing 18 pitches to get less than a full inning, which points to him battling traffic, and with so many arms already used for length, Pittsburgh's bullpen depth looks thinner than usual heading into tonight against Cincinnati.
FIRST INNINGMIA @ NYM
NRFI watch: quiet first innings on both sides of MIA @ NYM
Both these lineups have been slow out of the gate — the Mets scoring a first-inning run in just 2 of their last 10, Miami in 3 of 10. Thornton and Phillips have both actually been hittable early this season, so it's not a clean case either way.
P 1st inning: 1-0 (1 run)
FANTASY PICKUPSARI @ CLE
Parker Messick
Streamer vs ARI — 3.14 xERA · 8.8 K/9 · 1.04 WHIP.
FANTASY PICKUPSBOS @ LAD
Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Streamer vs BOS — 3.19 xERA · 8.5 K/9 · 0.9 WHIP.
RETURN WATCHSEA — return listed 8/3
Matt Brash
Listed back 8/3 (15-Day-IL, lat) — 0.54 ERA this season.
BALLPARKSTL @ TOR
Kevin Gausman's ERA drops to 3.86 at Rogers Centre
Gausman's a lot better at home than away — 3.86 ERA at Rogers Centre against 5.33 on the road, and that's exactly where he's pitching tonight.
P 5.2 IP, 1 ER, 4 K
CLOSER WATCHSTL @ TOR
Riley O'Brien
Riley O'Brien owns the ninth for the Cardinals — 26 saves this season (next closest: George Soriano with 2).
TOMORROWWSH @ ATL
Martín Pérez: 3.49 ERA vs 4.68 xERA
Pérez is beating his expected ERA by over a run, but a 6.4% barrel rate is a genuinely elite number — hitters just aren't squaring him up enough for the whole gap to be luck. Some of this overperformance looks earned.
CLOSER WATCHSTL @ TOR
Louis Varland
Louis Varland owns the ninth for the Blue Jays — 23 saves this season (next closest: Jeff Hoffman with 5).
RETURN WATCHSEA — return listed 8/4
Brendan Donovan
Listed back 8/4 (10-Day-IL, groin) — 0.839 OPS this season.
CUT LISTKC tonight
Salvador Perez
Still hitting 4th for KC — 0.632 OPS, 0.214 AVG from the 4-hole.
TOMORROWSF @ SD
Michael King: 3.38 ERA vs 4.58 xERA
King's beating his expected ERA by over a run too, and the contact numbers actually support it — a 33% hard-hit rate is a genuinely stingy number. This doesn't look like a gap that's about to close on him.
TOMORROWBOS @ LAD
Emmet Sheehan: 4.95 ERA vs 3.77 xERA
Sheehan's a run and change worse than his expected ERA, but it's a modest gap with unremarkable contact numbers underneath — more ordinary variance than a red flag.
CLOSER WATCHTEX @ HOU
Jacob Latz
Jacob Latz owns the ninth for the Rangers — 21 saves this season (next closest: Jakob Junis with 5).
CLOSER WATCHPHI @ BAL
Jhoan Duran
Jhoan Duran owns the ninth for the Phillies — 24 saves this season (next closest: Brad Keller with 3).
CLOSER WATCHCHW @ TB
Bryan Baker
Bryan Baker owns the ninth for the Rays — 30 saves this season (next closest: Kevin Kelly with 4).
HEAT CHECKSTL @ TOR
Alejandro Kirk: .812 OPS in Last 15 Days
The last 15 days sample runs 32 PA: a .812 OPS versus .648 for the season, 0.164 above his norm. His total-bases line tonight: 1.5.
P 1-for-2, 1 TB, 2 BB
TOMORROWKC @ COL
Seth Lugo: 4.22 ERA vs 5.38 xERA
Lugo's beating his expected ERA by over a run, but his actual and expected average against are nearly identical, .274 to .277. Whatever's driving that gap, it isn't weak contact turning into easy outs.
CUT LISTSEA tonight
Cal Raleigh
Still hitting 5th for SEA — 0.579 OPS, 0.164 AVG from the 5-hole.
CUT LISTPHI tonight
Alec Bohm
Still hitting 4th for PHI — 0.647 OPS, 0.223 AVG from the 4-hole.
RUNNING GAMESF @ SD
San Diego Padres like to run — Daniel Susac (33% caught) is the wrong catcher to test
A third of the runners who've tested Susac this year have been thrown out, a real arm, and San Diego keeps running anyway. That's the best reason to think a Padres runner gets erased tonight.
P San Diego Padres stole 0 bases
PARK WEATHERKC @ COL
92° at Coors Field — the ball will carry tonight
Ninety-two degrees and thin air at Coors is about as good as it gets for hitters — the ball just travels different up there in that heat. Total's already at 11.5 and I don't think that's rich enough.
P final total 18 vs 12 (over lean)
BALLPARKSF @ SD
At Petco Park, Walker Buehler pitches to a 4.58 ERA
Buehler's actually better at Petco than anywhere else, 4.58 against 5.74 on the road — a pitcher-friendly park doing real work for him tonight.
P 4.1 IP, 3 ER, 1 K
RUNNING GAMEWSH @ ATL
Green light: Washington Nationals run, and Drake Baldwin has caught just 15%
Baldwin's thrown out six of thirty-nine runners this year, about as exploitable as a catcher gets, and Washington already runs at a solid clip. I'd be surprised if they don't send somebody early and often tonight.
P Washington Nationals stole 0 bases
BALLPARKBOS @ LAD
Yoshinobu Yamamoto owns a 3.27 ERA at Dodger Stadium — 2.17 everywhere else
Yamamoto's been sharper on the road than at Dodger Stadium this year, 2.17 ERA away against 3.27 at home. Unusual split for a guy pitching in front of his own crowd tonight.
P 8 IP, 3 ER, 3 K
REGRESSIONMIA @ NYM
New York Mets are 10-20 in one-run games (.333 win%)
A .333 record in one-run games, 10-20, is the kind of number that doesn't tend to stick — that's a lot of close losses for the Mets to keep piling up.
CUT LISTMIA tonight
Leo Jimenez
Still hitting 5th for MIA — 0.606 OPS, 0.210 AVG from the 5-hole.
CUT LISTNYM tonight
Bo Bichette
Still hitting 3th for NYM — 0.667 OPS, 0.256 AVG from the 3-hole.
CUT LISTTB tonight
Chandler Simpson
Still hitting 2th for TB — 0.674 OPS, 0.290 AVG from the 2-hole.
TOMORROWCHW @ TB
Griffin Jax: 3.74 ERA vs 4.71 xERA
Jax's gap is one of the tamer ones here, under a full run between his actual and expected ERA. The 15-point difference between his .244 actual average and .259 expected mark is within normal batted-ball variance rather than a warning sign. His hard-hit rate of 39.7% and barrel rate of 9.8% are both middle-of-the-pack for this group — not clean, not alarming. A gap this size usually just means a few balls have landed in gloves that could've found grass, and there's no strong signal here pointing to a correction against the White Sox.
TOMORROWCHW @ TB
Anthony Kay: 4.25 ERA vs 5.13 xERA
Kay's gap is the smallest on this entire list, and every supporting number backs that up. The 10-point difference between his .253 actual average allowed and .263 expected mark is about as close to neutral as batted-ball luck gets. His hard-hit rate of 39.5% and barrel rate of 8.8% are unremarkable in either direction — no red flag, no standout skill. When the process and the results are this close together, there isn't much of a luck story here; against Tampa Bay, this is close to what you see is what you get.
RUNNING GAMEMIN @ SEA
Green light: Seattle Mariners run, and Victor Caratini has caught just 14%
Eight of fifty-nine runners caught — one of the softest arms on the board tonight — and Seattle's already got 81 stolen bases this season. This is about as green a light as you'll find tonight.
P Seattle Mariners stole 1 base
REGRESSIONMIN @ SEA
Brooks Lee: .244 AVG vs .223 xBA
Across 425 plate appearances, Brooks Lee carries a .244 average versus a .223 xBA. His wOBA sits at .316 against a .271 expected (xwOBA). Statcast grades the quality of his contact rather than the results, and the expected marks sit below what he has actually posted.
P 2-for-4, 3 TB
REGRESSIONPHI @ BAL
Philadelphia Phillies are 19-10 in one-run games (.655 win%)
Nineteen and ten in one-run games is a .655 clip that's hard to sustain over a full season. Philadelphia's record right now is probably a little better than the team underneath it.
RETURN WATCHCOL — return listed 8/6
Blas Castano
Listed back 8/6 (15-Day-IL, pectoral) — 3.92 ERA this season.
RUNNING GAMEKC @ COL
Colorado Rockies like to run — Salvador Perez (34% caught) is the wrong catcher to test
Colorado Rockies attempt 0.9 steals a game, but Salvador Perez has cut down 11 of 32 runners (34%). Someone is getting thrown out tonight.
P Colorado Rockies stole 0 bases
RUNNING GAMEMIN @ SEA
Green light: Minnesota Twins run, and Mitch Garver has caught just 14%
Minnesota Twins steal 0.6 bags a game (67 on the season) and Mitch Garver has thrown out 5 of 36 runners (14%). Everything about tonight says they keep running.
P Minnesota Twins stole 0 bases
RETURN WATCHLAD — return listed 8/5
Gavin Stone
Listed back 8/5 (60-Day-IL, shoulder).
CUT LISTSTL tonight
Masyn Winn
Still hitting 6th for STL — 0.640 OPS, 0.243 AVG from the 6-hole.
RETURN WATCHPIT — return listed 8/7
Oneil Cruz
Listed back 8/7 (60-Day-IL, hand) — 0.822 OPS this season.
FANTASY PICKUPSMIL @ LAA
Robert Gasser
Streamer vs LAA — 3.75 xERA · 8.2 K/9 · 1.17 WHIP.
CUT LISTTOR tonight
Alejandro Kirk
Still hitting 5th for TOR — 0.648 OPS, 0.231 AVG from the 5-hole.
FANTASY PICKUPSMIA @ NYM
Jared Young
Pickup vs Tyler Phillips (4.71 xERA) — .753 OPS, bats 5th.
FANTASY PICKUPSMIA @ NYM
Francisco Lindor
Pickup vs Tyler Phillips (4.71 xERA) — .749 OPS, bats 2nd.
FIRST INNINGKC @ COL
KC have gone quiet in the 1st: runs in 1 of their last 10
Kansas City's bats have scored in the first inning just once in their last ten games — a surprising drought given both starters tonight, Feltner and Avila, have been hittable early all year. Something's got to give early in this one.
P flagged team scored 0 in the 1st
FIRST INNINGMIN @ SEA
SEA have gone quiet in the 1st: runs in 1 of their last 10
Seattle's hitters have scored in the first inning just once in their last ten games — quiet, even against a Minnesota starter who's had a rough first inning all year himself. Their own arm, Gilbert, hasn't been much sharper early, so this could stay a slow-starting game on both sides.
P flagged team scored 2 in the 1st
FIRST INNINGNYY @ CHC
NYY have gone quiet in the 1st: runs in 1 of their last 10
Yankees hitters have scored in the first inning just once in their last ten games. That's notable against Peterson specifically, who's been rough in first innings all year — a 10.13 ERA and .389 average against — while Fried's own first-inning number, 4.50, is milder but still nothing special.
P flagged team scored 0 in the 1st
FIRST INNINGPIT @ CIN
PIT have gone quiet in the 1st: runs in 1 of their last 10
Pittsburgh's bats have gone quiet early, scoring in the first just once in ten games — even against a Reds starter who's been rough there himself, a 6.95 ERA and .267 average against in first innings. Ashcraft, on the other hand, has actually been sharp in the first all year, even while the rest of his recent starts have been a mess.
P flagged team scored 0 in the 1st
FANTASY PICKUPSMIA @ NYM
Carson Benge
Pickup vs Tyler Phillips (4.71 xERA) — .725 OPS, bats 4th.

Graded results

Games

W
Pittsburgh Pirates ML -126
MLB · 4-1
L
Cardinals ML +141
MLB · 1-5
L
Athletics +1.5 +104
MLB · 8-6
W
Tampa Bay Rays ML -175
MLB · 0-1
W
Marlins ML +113
MLB · 6-2
L
Minnesota Twins ML +143
MLB · 3-4
W
Braves ML -171
MLB · 3-8
W
Cubs ML -125
MLB · 2-5
L
Orioles ML +127
MLB · 5-0
L
Royals ML +109
MLB · 6-12
W
Astros ML +104
MLB · 4-5
W
Diamondbacks ML +149
MLB · 12-8
W
Red Sox ML +149
MLB · 3-2
W
Padres ML -144
MLB · 5-6
L
Angels +1.5 -126
MLB · 3-1

Props

L
Andres Chaparro · over
Nationals @ Braves · Actual 0
L
Chase Meidroth · over
White Sox @ Rays · Actual 0
L
Christian Encarnacion-Strand · over
Phillies @ Orioles · Actual 0
L
CJ Abrams · over
Nationals @ Braves · Actual 0
L
CJ Abrams · over
Nationals @ Braves · Actual 0
L
Coby Mayo · over
Phillies @ Orioles · Actual 0
L
Daniel Susac · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 0
L
David Peterson · over
Yankees @ Cubs · Actual 1
L
Dominic Canzone · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 0
L
Drake Baldwin · over
Nationals @ Braves · Actual 0
L
Esmerlyn Valdez · over
Pirates @ Reds · Actual 0
W
Framber Valdez · over
Tigers @ Athletics · Actual 2
L
Francisco Lindor · over
Marlins @ Mets · Actual 0
W
Francisco Lindor · over
Marlins @ Mets · Actual 2
L
Gabriel Moreno · over
Diamondbacks @ Guardians · Actual 0
W
George Springer · over
Cardinals @ Blue Jays · Actual 1
L
Heriberto Hernandez · over
Marlins @ Mets · Actual 0
W
Jack Perkins · over
Tigers @ Athletics · Actual 6
L
Jackson Merrill · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 0
W
Jake Bauers · over
Brewers @ Angels · Actual 1
W
Jeremy Pena · over
Rangers @ Astros · Actual 5
L
Joc Pederson · over
Rangers @ Astros · Actual 0
L
Jordan Walker · over
Cardinals @ Blue Jays · Actual 0
L
Junior Caminero · over
White Sox @ Rays · Actual 0
L
Ketel Marte · over
Diamondbacks @ Guardians · Actual 0
L
Kevin Gausman · over
Cardinals @ Blue Jays · Actual 1
L
Kody Clemens · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 0
L
Kohl Drake · over
Diamondbacks @ Guardians · Actual 2
L
Kyle Stowers · over
Marlins @ Mets · Actual 1
L
Kyle Stowers · over
Marlins @ Mets · Actual 0
L
Logan Gilbert · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 6
L
Manny Machado · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 0
L
Manny Machado · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 1
W
Matt Olson · over
Nationals @ Braves · Actual 1
L
Michael Harris II · over
Nationals @ Braves · Actual 0
W
Mickey Moniak · over
Royals @ Rockies · Actual 1
W
Munetaka Murakami · over
White Sox @ Rays · Actual 1
L
Munetaka Murakami · over
White Sox @ Rays · Actual 0
L
Nathaniel Lowe · over
Pirates @ Reds · Actual 0
L
Nick Gonzales · over
Pirates @ Reds · Actual 0
W
Nico Hoerner · over
Yankees @ Cubs · Actual 4
L
Ozzie Albies · over
Nationals @ Braves · Actual 1
L
Parker Messick · over
Diamondbacks @ Guardians · Actual 13
W
Payton Tolle · over
Red Sox @ Dodgers · Actual 7
L
Pete Alonso · over
Phillies @ Orioles · Actual 0
L
Rafael Devers · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 0
W
Rhys Hoskins · over
Diamondbacks @ Guardians · Actual 1
L
Ryan Jeffers · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 1
L
Ryan Jeffers · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 0
L
Ryan Vilade · over
White Sox @ Rays · Actual 0
L
Sal Stewart · over
Pirates @ Reds · Actual 0
L
Sal Stewart · over
Pirates @ Reds · Actual 0
W
Salvador Perez · over
Royals @ Rockies · Actual 4
L
Shohei Ohtani · over
Red Sox @ Dodgers · Actual 1
W
Ty France · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 4
L
Vaughn Grissom · over
Brewers @ Angels · Actual 0
W
Willi Castro · over
Royals @ Rockies · Actual 1
W
Yordan Alvarez · over
Rangers @ Astros · Actual 2