Sports Picks Archive — Sunday, August 2, 2026

Game picks

GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Orioles· -145

Sunday matinee at Camden Yards, series tied at a game apiece, and the last thing these Orioles saw was Cristopher Sánchez punching out eleven and barking at their dugout on his way off the mound. Now they get Zack Wheeler. The number opened this morning at Philadelphia -130 and it sits at -145 with the Baltimore side stuck on +120 — the book didn't improve the dog, it just made the favorite more expensive. That isn't two-way action. That's a house leaning. Wheeler is the best thing on this field and it isn't close. Ten and two, a 2.53 his expected numbers back all the way down, a splitter hitters swing through nearly half the time and a sweeper right behind it. He got knocked around in Miami six days ago — three innings, five earned — and the market filed that where I did, under "one start." What's in front of him is a Baltimore lineup at its thinnest point of the year. No Rutschman, no Basallo. Ward is 8-for-48 over two weeks, Taveras 5-for-41, Cowser 2-for-18, and Jake Rogers hasn't got a hit in eleven tries and carries a .123 mark in day games. Four lefties in that order against a right-hander holding left-handed bats to .191. Alonso is squaring it up and Holliday's been the one hot bat, but Holliday hits .157 when the sun's out. Bradish has been fine and nothing more — 1.36 WHIP, a sinker nobody misses, a four-seamer getting hit at .301. I don't love the price and I'll say so out loud: -145 is close to what I make it, and paying up after a fifteen-cent move is not how you build a bankroll. Two things push me over. Philadelphia's bullpen behind Wheeler is rested — Duran threw thirteen pitches last night, nobody worked back-to-back — while Baltimore's late arms are the ones who handed over four in the eighth yesterday, Kittredge needing twenty pitches to record one out. And the run line at +117 is a trap; that price implies a Phillies win is a two-run win about 78 percent of the time, and it isn't. So it's the straight side. The thing that can wreck it is the sky — there's storm risk on this one, and a long delay pulls Wheeler out early and hands the game to arms I trust considerably less. That's the risk I'm taking on. Phillies moneyline.

Wheeler is the best thing on this field and it isn't close. Ten and two, a 2.53 his expected numbers back all the way down, a splitter hitters swing through nearly half the time and a sweeper right behind it. He got knocked around in Miami six days ago — three innings, five earned — and the market filed that where I did, under "one start." What's in front of him is a Baltimore lineup at its thinnest point of the year. No Rutschman, no Basallo. Ward is 8-for-48 over two weeks, Taveras 5-for-41, Cowser 2-for-18, and Jake Rogers hasn't got a hit in eleven tries and carries a .123 mark in day games. Four lefties in that order against a right-hander holding left-handed bats to .191. Alonso is squaring it up and Holliday's been the one hot bat, but Holliday hits .157 when the sun's out. Bradish has been fine and nothing more — 1.36 WHIP, a sinker nobody misses, a four-seamer getting hit at .301.

I don't love the price and I'll say so out loud: -145 is close to what I make it, and paying up after a fifteen-cent move is not how you build a bankroll. Two things push me over. Philadelphia's bullpen behind Wheeler is rested — Duran threw thirteen pitches last night, nobody worked back-to-back — while Baltimore's late arms are the ones who handed over four in the eighth yesterday, Kittredge needing twenty pitches to record one out. And the run line at +117 is a trap; that price implies a Phillies win is a two-run win about 78 percent of the time, and it isn't. So it's the straight side. The thing that can wreck it is the sky — there's storm risk on this one, and a long delay pulls Wheeler out early and hands the game to arms I trust considerably less. That's the risk I'm taking on. Phillies moneyline.

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GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Braves· +101

Sunday matinee at Truist, Braves up three-nothing in this series, and the man Atlanta hands the ball to this afternoon was scheduled to pitch in Gwinnett this weekend. You know how it got here: Reynaldo López's knee let go in warmups about an hour before Saturday's first pitch, Martín Pérez woke up from a nap, said yes, and carried a no-hit bid into the seventh. Pérez was Sunday's starter. So the finale falls to JR Ritchie, recalled on a day's notice, making his first big-league start since late June. Ritchie's shape is specific. The curveball is a real weapon — hitters chase it, they miss it, they don't square it. Everything else has been handled, and the fastballs he leans on early have been hit hard, with left-handed bats doing most of the damage. Washington is running six lefties and two switch-hitters out there, and the ones who've been dangerous are dangerous in exactly that way: Wood, Abrams and García have been punishing four-seamers and sinkers all year, and Abrams and García have been as hot as anyone in baseball the last two weeks. On the other side, Cavalli gets an extra day, has gone six innings in five of his last six, and sits 96 with a knuckle curve he'll throw in any count. For the first time in this series, Washington has the better arm on the mound. What gives me pause is the last third of the game. Atlanta's back end is Iglesias and Dodd; Washington's is walks and hope, and the Nationals hand out more free bases with their gloves than anybody in the division. That's real, and it's why this is priced where it is. But the Braves' middle has gone dark — Acuña, Harris and Riley have all been quiet for a week, and Riley's been a different hitter in the daylight — and the wind blowing in from right takes a bite out of the left-handed thunder that's decided the first three games. At even money I'll take the established starter, the platoon matchup, and a road team that's been better away from home than in it. Washington, moneyline.

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GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Blue Jays· +113

Sunday matinee under a closed roof at Rogers Centre, deadline clock ticking toward Monday evening, and Toronto is one win from a broom against a Cardinals club that hasn't scored more than a run since it landed in Canada. Everything on the surface says lay the price. That's exactly why I'm on the other side of it. Start with what moved. At five this morning Toronto was a -114 favorite; by the time lineups posted they were -136. Nothing happened in those hours that makes this team twenty-two cents better — Guerrero's been in the box all series, the roof was always closing, and the only real development was confirmation that Max Scherzer is taking the ball. Scherzer has thrown twenty-four and two-thirds innings across seven starts this season, and he's been handled worse in this building than anywhere else on the map. Last time out he was pulled at 2.2 innings coming off a seven-week absence. Whatever he has today, it is not length. Toronto ran four relievers out there yesterday, Hoffman has now worked back-to-back days, and that same group has to cover five or six innings with a flight to Houston waiting. Liberatore is no one's idea of a stopper, but he's the arm in this game that has actually been going every fifth day, and St. Louis stacks four left-handed bats into this order against a right-hander who has been punished by lefties all year. Understand the risk plainly: if Toronto is piggybacking Bieber behind him for showcase innings the day before the deadline, this reads very differently, and the Cardinals have put up two runs in two days, so nobody should confuse this with a bet on that offense waking up. I'm not buying the team. I'm buying the number. A club priced at +104 this morning is +113 now because it looks dead, and I'll take the longer number with the steadier starter and a back end that hasn't worked since Thursday.

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GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Guardians· +144

Getaway day at Progressive Field, 1:40 local, and there's weather sitting out over the lake all afternoon. Cleveland is trying to avoid getting swept in its own building by a team that has turned into a freight train, and the board opened this morning at Guardians -156 and has been pushed to -175 since. Nobody traded a player, nobody got scratched. That's nineteen cents of pure respect for one man on the mound. Gavin Williams deserves some of it. Ninety-seven with a sweeper hitters swing through nearly half the time, and he's been better in this park than anywhere else all year. But look at what happens when he pitches here. His last three times out he threw seven, seven, and six innings, struck out thirty-four men, and Cleveland lost all three games. This offense has scored three runs a night over its last ten. It scored zero for him against Cincinnati, zero for him against Minnesota. You're being asked to lay a heavy price on a pitcher, not on a baseball team, and those are different bets. Behind him is a bullpen that got lit up for seven runs in an inning and a half last night, has Gaddis and Holderman and Herrin all working on fumes, and just shipped an arm back to Columbus this morning. And this lineup in the daylight is a rough sit — Ramírez at .200, Manzardo at .186, Bailey at .157, Kwan drops sixty points of average when the sun's up. I'm not going to pretend Merrill Kelly is the reason I'm here. He's not. He gives up hard contact, he's had four ordinary starts in a row, and Cleveland stacks lefties against him for a reason. I'm here because Arizona has scored six and a half runs a game for two weeks, because they put the bat on the ball more than almost anybody and don't need a starter to be perfect, because they hit better in day games up and down the card, and because they've already walked into this park twice this week and won 4-1 and 12-8. When a team that's won fourteen of nineteen is priced at plus money against a club that's lost eight of ten, you don't need to be right about the pitchers. You need to be right about which nine men are more likely to put a crooked number up. Give me the Diamondbacks and the plus money.

Gavin Williams deserves some of it. Ninety-seven with a sweeper hitters swing through nearly half the time, and he's been better in this park than anywhere else all year. But look at what happens when he pitches here. His last three times out he threw seven, seven, and six innings, struck out thirty-four men, and Cleveland lost all three games. This offense has scored three runs a night over its last ten. It scored zero for him against Cincinnati, zero for him against Minnesota. You're being asked to lay a heavy price on a pitcher, not on a baseball team, and those are different bets. Behind him is a bullpen that got lit up for seven runs in an inning and a half last night, has Gaddis and Holderman and Herrin all working on fumes, and just shipped an arm back to Columbus this morning. And this lineup in the daylight is a rough sit — Ramírez at .200, Manzardo at .186, Bailey at .157, Kwan drops sixty points of average when the sun's up.

I'm not going to pretend Merrill Kelly is the reason I'm here. He's not. He gives up hard contact, he's had four ordinary starts in a row, and Cleveland stacks lefties against him for a reason. I'm here because Arizona has scored six and a half runs a game for two weeks, because they put the bat on the ball more than almost anybody and don't need a starter to be perfect, because they hit better in day games up and down the card, and because they've already walked into this park twice this week and won 4-1 and 12-8. When a team that's won fourteen of nineteen is priced at plus money against a club that's lost eight of ten, you don't need to be right about the pitchers. You need to be right about which nine men are more likely to put a crooked number up. Give me the Diamondbacks and the plus money.

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GARY'S PICK

MLBvs White Sox· -150

Sunday matinee at the Trop, 1:40 first pitch, and these two division leaders have spent two days telling on each other — Friday the White Sox put four balls in the seats and won 6-1, Saturday Rasmussen punched out ten, Baker flexed his way to save number thirty-one, and the whole thing finished 1-0. Rubber game, getaway day, Tampa's on a plane to Denver tonight. Here's what actually decides it: neither man on the mound will be around for the ending. Anthony Kay's last six outings read 5.1, 5.0, 4.0, 5.1, 4.0, 3.2. Griffin Jax has 86 innings across 17 starts — five and change, every time out. This is a bullpen game with a one o'clock start time. Kay throws left-handed, and Tampa's card is stacked with the exact profile that's been beating him all season. Right-handed bats are hitting .280 with an .851 OPS and twelve home runs off him; lefties are hitting .182. Cash writes down six righties today, and the good ones are good against lefties on purpose — Caminero carries a .978 OPS with seven homers in 109 at-bats versus southpaws, Vilade has hit six of his nine off left-handers, Diaz sits at .298 and does his best work in the afternoon at .341. Flip it and Chicago rolls out five left-handed bats against a right-hander in a day game where most of that group has been ordinary. The Rays are 41-17 in this building for reasons that show up on a lineup card. Then the back half, which is where I actually live on this one. Chicago's closer left in the Castillo deal — Seranthony Domínguez is gone as of today, and Castillo doesn't pitch this afternoon. They emptied Noah Schultz for 67 pitches yesterday, Schweitzer for 43 on Thursday, Trevor Richards has worked back-to-back days, and they recalled Duncan Davitt this morning to have a body in the pen. Tampa answers with Baker at a 1.45 and twenty straight save opportunities converted, Kelly at a 0.83 WHIP, Cleavinger and Booser underneath, and not one arm that's pitched consecutive days. Four shutouts in their last seven. The honest counterweight: Tampa has scored one, one, three and three lately, Aranda's hitting .208 over two weeks, and -150 is not a gift price. But Chicago shortened from +140 to +124 this morning while the Rays never budged off -150. When the favorite's number sits still while the other side gets bet, I'll stand on the number.

Kay throws left-handed, and Tampa's card is stacked with the exact profile that's been beating him all season. Right-handed bats are hitting .280 with an .851 OPS and twelve home runs off him; lefties are hitting .182. Cash writes down six righties today, and the good ones are good against lefties on purpose — Caminero carries a .978 OPS with seven homers in 109 at-bats versus southpaws, Vilade has hit six of his nine off left-handers, Diaz sits at .298 and does his best work in the afternoon at .341. Flip it and Chicago rolls out five left-handed bats against a right-hander in a day game where most of that group has been ordinary. The Rays are 41-17 in this building for reasons that show up on a lineup card.

Then the back half, which is where I actually live on this one. Chicago's closer left in the Castillo deal — Seranthony Domínguez is gone as of today, and Castillo doesn't pitch this afternoon. They emptied Noah Schultz for 67 pitches yesterday, Schweitzer for 43 on Thursday, Trevor Richards has worked back-to-back days, and they recalled Duncan Davitt this morning to have a body in the pen. Tampa answers with Baker at a 1.45 and twenty straight save opportunities converted, Kelly at a 0.83 WHIP, Cleavinger and Booser underneath, and not one arm that's pitched consecutive days. Four shutouts in their last seven. The honest counterweight: Tampa has scored one, one, three and three lately, Aranda's hitting .208 over two weeks, and -150 is not a gift price. But Chicago shortened from +140 to +124 this morning while the Rays never budged off -150. When the favorite's number sits still while the other side gets bet, I'll stand on the number.

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GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Mets· -120

Sunday matinee at Citi Field, 1:40 first pitch, wind coming right-to-left off the bay and a trade deadline sitting over both dugouts like weather. Miami has taken the first two of this set by a combined 11-4, and the finale hands the ball to Sandy Alcantara against a name half this ballpark had to look up. Marlins -120, up a tick from -116 this morning. Robert Stock hadn't thrown a major league pitch since June of last year, or started a big league game since 2021, until New York selected his contract off the Syracuse roster this morning. Whatever he's got, he's being asked to bring it against a Miami lineup that runs seven left-handed or switch bats at a right-hander — Kyle Stowers with four homers in the last week and a 95.8 average exit velocity, Griffin Conine with three more and a 1.031 OPS against righties, Liam Hicks hitting .306 off them all year. And the fallback plan got thinner overnight: the Mets optioned Pintaro, designated Herget, and filled the spot with a Double-A arm, which means innings three through six are a live problem rather than a formality. Alcantara has been the opposite kind of day — six innings or more in five of his last six, seven shutout against Philadelphia last week, and 18 career games against these Mets holding them to .211. The number is the only thing keeping this honest, and I want to say the case against out loud. Miami is 23-32 away from home, the bats have averaged 3.7 a game over the last two weeks, and Citi Field is the yard that turns a good lineup into a 2-1 argument. Lindor is the one who scares me — .303 with two homers off Alcantara, .321 with four homers over his last 15 days, swinging like the only man in that dugout who didn't read the standings. But at -120 I'm not paying for certainty, I'm paying for a coin flip on a game where one side has an established starter on normal rest and the other is holding auditions on deadline eve with a stripped bullpen behind it. That's a gap the price hasn't closed. Marlins on the moneyline, and let Sandy pitch it.

Robert Stock hadn't thrown a major league pitch since June of last year, or started a big league game since 2021, until New York selected his contract off the Syracuse roster this morning. Whatever he's got, he's being asked to bring it against a Miami lineup that runs seven left-handed or switch bats at a right-hander — Kyle Stowers with four homers in the last week and a 95.8 average exit velocity, Griffin Conine with three more and a 1.031 OPS against righties, Liam Hicks hitting .306 off them all year. And the fallback plan got thinner overnight: the Mets optioned Pintaro, designated Herget, and filled the spot with a Double-A arm, which means innings three through six are a live problem rather than a formality. Alcantara has been the opposite kind of day — six innings or more in five of his last six, seven shutout against Philadelphia last week, and 18 career games against these Mets holding them to .211.

The number is the only thing keeping this honest, and I want to say the case against out loud. Miami is 23-32 away from home, the bats have averaged 3.7 a game over the last two weeks, and Citi Field is the yard that turns a good lineup into a 2-1 argument. Lindor is the one who scares me — .303 with two homers off Alcantara, .321 with four homers over his last 15 days, swinging like the only man in that dugout who didn't read the standings. But at -120 I'm not paying for certainty, I'm paying for a coin flip on a game where one side has an established starter on normal rest and the other is holding auditions on deadline eve with a stripped bullpen behind it. That's a gap the price hasn't closed. Marlins on the moneyline, and let Sandy pitch it.

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GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Reds· +120

One-forty on a Sunday in Cincinnati, storms circling the Ohio River, and a series where the first three games have been decided by a grand total of five runs. Chase Burns takes the ball for the Reds chasing a franchise mark that has stood since Tom Browning in 1985. Mitch Keller takes it for Pittsburgh looking for his first win since the last week of June. On paper that's the whole story, and on paper the price makes sense. It isn't the whole story. Burns is the best arm in this ballpark today and he is also the shortest. Five, five, five, six, six, five across his last six starts — a rookie whose workload question nobody in that clubhouse has actually answered, handled carefully by a manager who has said as much. That means four innings of Cincinnati bullpen on a getaway day, and that bullpen just ran Moll, Garcia and Ferguson out on back-to-back nights, with Santillan and Ashcraft still on the shelf behind them. And the club Burns is pitching for hits .230, scores 4.1 a night, and is 25-31 in its own park. Pittsburgh has been miserable for two weeks, but across 112 games it is the better offense by a full run a night, and today it stacks six bats from the left side against a right-hander who has given up eleven of his thirteen home runs to left-handed hitters. Horwitz is back off the injured list in that group. Doval was activated this morning to deepen the back end. The hole is Keller, obviously — the underlying numbers are worse than the 4.83 and he's been beaten up all summer. What helps him is who's standing in the box: Cincinnati wrote out six right-handed hitters, and right-handers are hitting .196 with a .553 OPS against him this year. The market has already started sliding my way — Pittsburgh was +134 at five this morning and it's +120 now, which tells you where the money went and that I'd rather have had the earlier number. I'll still take this one. If the sky opens the way it did last night, it's Burns who gets pulled early, not Keller, and the side with the deeper bullpen and the better lineup inherits the last four innings. Pirates on the moneyline.

Burns is the best arm in this ballpark today and he is also the shortest. Five, five, five, six, six, five across his last six starts — a rookie whose workload question nobody in that clubhouse has actually answered, handled carefully by a manager who has said as much. That means four innings of Cincinnati bullpen on a getaway day, and that bullpen just ran Moll, Garcia and Ferguson out on back-to-back nights, with Santillan and Ashcraft still on the shelf behind them. And the club Burns is pitching for hits .230, scores 4.1 a night, and is 25-31 in its own park. Pittsburgh has been miserable for two weeks, but across 112 games it is the better offense by a full run a night, and today it stacks six bats from the left side against a right-hander who has given up eleven of his thirteen home runs to left-handed hitters. Horwitz is back off the injured list in that group. Doval was activated this morning to deepen the back end.

The hole is Keller, obviously — the underlying numbers are worse than the 4.83 and he's been beaten up all summer. What helps him is who's standing in the box: Cincinnati wrote out six right-handed hitters, and right-handers are hitting .196 with a .553 OPS against him this year. The market has already started sliding my way — Pittsburgh was +134 at five this morning and it's +120 now, which tells you where the money went and that I'd rather have had the earlier number. I'll still take this one. If the sky opens the way it did last night, it's Burns who gets pulled early, not Keller, and the side with the deeper bullpen and the better lineup inherits the last four innings. Pirates on the moneyline.

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GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Rangers· -142

Sunday matinee at Daikin Park, roof shut, 73 and still — Houston with the broom in hand and first place on the line, Texas dragging the last leg of a six-game road trip into a day game after a night game. The Astros have won five straight and ten of eleven. The Rangers have lost four in a row and scored 2.4 a night over their last five. This one opened Houston -126 this morning and it's been bought up to -142 since the cards came out. That tells you where the money went. My job is deciding whether it went to the right place. It did, and the lineup cards are why. Peter Lambert has held left-handed hitters to .144 with a .486 OPS in nearly 200 at-bats this year, and Skip Schumaker is running four lefties out there in the top six — Pederson, Seager, Nimmo, Carter. Seager is three days off the injured list and hitting .131 in day games. Carter's at .203 in the sunshine, Pederson .198, Cam Cauley hasn't got a hit in a day game all year. That's a tired road offense walking into the exact arm that's built to retire it. Kumar Rocker is the live counterargument — his slider is a genuine weapon, 46 percent whiffs, and Houston's righty core of Peña, Paredes and Walker doesn't hit sliders. But the slider is only 38 percent of what he throws. The other 62 percent is a sinker and a cutter that get squared up, and the Astros hit sinkers as well as anybody in the league. He faced this same group three weeks ago and left with seven earned and three balls in the seats, and that was in Arlington, not next to a 315-foot left field wall. And when both starters come out around the sixth — which is where they both live — Houston hands it to Bryan King, Abreu and a closer who's fifteen for fifteen at a 1.17, all of whom threw ten to thirteen pitches yesterday. Texas hands it to a bullpen that ranks 19th, burned Alexander, Gray and Silseth covering for deGrom last night, and shipped Curvelo back to Round Rock this morning. That gap decides a two-run game in August. The honest part: the price is the weakest thing about this bet. I'm not getting a discount at -142, and Houston in series finales is 16-20 this season, which is the one number in the file that argues for a letdown with Toronto in town tomorrow. The run line doesn't solve it either — Texas has played 31 one-run games and lives in them, so laying a run and a half at +149 is asking for a specific game shape I don't have any reason to expect. So I take the side straight and accept the tax. The better starter, the handedness edge on both sides of the ball, the fresher arms in the seventh and eighth, and a road team running on fumes on getaway day. Astros on the moneyline.

It did, and the lineup cards are why. Peter Lambert has held left-handed hitters to .144 with a .486 OPS in nearly 200 at-bats this year, and Skip Schumaker is running four lefties out there in the top six — Pederson, Seager, Nimmo, Carter. Seager is three days off the injured list and hitting .131 in day games. Carter's at .203 in the sunshine, Pederson .198, Cam Cauley hasn't got a hit in a day game all year. That's a tired road offense walking into the exact arm that's built to retire it. Kumar Rocker is the live counterargument — his slider is a genuine weapon, 46 percent whiffs, and Houston's righty core of Peña, Paredes and Walker doesn't hit sliders. But the slider is only 38 percent of what he throws. The other 62 percent is a sinker and a cutter that get squared up, and the Astros hit sinkers as well as anybody in the league. He faced this same group three weeks ago and left with seven earned and three balls in the seats, and that was in Arlington, not next to a 315-foot left field wall. And when both starters come out around the sixth — which is where they both live — Houston hands it to Bryan King, Abreu and a closer who's fifteen for fifteen at a 1.17, all of whom threw ten to thirteen pitches yesterday. Texas hands it to a bullpen that ranks 19th, burned Alexander, Gray and Silseth covering for deGrom last night, and shipped Curvelo back to Round Rock this morning. That gap decides a two-run game in August.

The honest part: the price is the weakest thing about this bet. I'm not getting a discount at -142, and Houston in series finales is 16-20 this season, which is the one number in the file that argues for a letdown with Toronto in town tomorrow. The run line doesn't solve it either — Texas has played 31 one-run games and lives in them, so laying a run and a half at +149 is asking for a specific game shape I don't have any reason to expect. So I take the side straight and accept the tax. The better starter, the handedness edge on both sides of the ball, the fresher arms in the seventh and eighth, and a road team running on fumes on getaway day. Astros on the moneyline.

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GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Yankees· +106

The flags at Wrigley are pointing back at home plate this afternoon — twenty off the lake, gusting near thirty — and these two have already handed us two games where the starters barely gave up a thing. Gerrit Cole against Colin Rea looks like the easiest call on the board. That's exactly why the price is worth a second look. Cole is the better pitcher and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. But look at what this Yankee lineup has become: 3.4 runs a game over the last two weeks, .233 as a team, and nearly everything they've scored in this series came off the bat and over the wall — Rosario's 450-footer Friday, Spencer Jones twice. Judge, Stanton and Bellinger have been gone long enough that the market has already paid for it. The wind hasn't been paid for. A twenty-mile-an-hour blow-in takes away the one thing this offense still does and asks it to string singles behind Grisham, McMahon, Caballero and Wells, none of whom have hit .200 in a fortnight. Cole is the extreme fly-ball arm in this game, so the wind works for him too — it just does more damage to the side that has to score for him. Rea is a homebody — 3.33 at Wrigley, 5.93 everywhere else — and this is the afternoon his four-seam gets to live in the air without paying full freight for it. Behind him the Cubs are at 5.9 runs a game over two weeks, Hoerner hitting .404 across fifteen days, Bregman .321, Crow-Armstrong at .361 with men in scoring position; that's a lineup that scores in the gaps and on the ground, which is the only way anybody scores today. New York is on game ten of a road trip, day game after a night game, coming off a pen that coughed up the seventh and shipped Doval out the door yesterday. This one gets decided in the seventh and eighth by whoever has more arms left, and that's Chicago. The board had them plus 112 this morning and it's been bet to a coin flip since — I'll take the Cubs at plus money while it's still there.

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GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Rockies· +106

Sunday afternoon at 5,280 feet, deadline eve, and Colorado's already got this series in the bag — 3-1 Friday, 12-6 Saturday, with Hunter Goodman putting two into the seats and the Royals watching Lane Thomas get pulled mid-inning because Atlanta wanted him. Kansas City closes a ten-game trip here and then goes home. That's the room. Now here's the card. The surface tells you Kyle Freeland is 2-10 with a 7.34 and Seth Lugo is 4-6 with a 4.22, and that's a mismatch you could drive a truck through. It isn't. Strip out the sequencing and the park and you get Lugo at a 5.38 expected mark and Freeland at 5.63 — same pitcher, different luck. Lugo's been living on it; Freeland's been buried by it. Both of them are throwing at altitude this afternoon where the curveball Lugo leans on for chase flattens out and Freeland's cutter is exactly what it's been all year. I'm not buying an edge on either arm, in either direction. Which means this game gets decided by the nine names, and that's where the number stops making sense to me. Colorado wrote out a lineup this afternoon without Hunter Goodman in it. Thirty-three homers, a club record for a catcher, four hits and five ribbies last night, and the loudest bat in the building — sitting the day before he might get shipped to New York or Boston. Kyle Karros, four for eight in this series, also out. That leaves Brett Sullivan hitting eighth in front of a Johnston-Julien-Tovar stretch that's been closer to .150 than .250 for two weeks. Meanwhile the Rockies are 11-25 in series finales and 14-29 the day after a win, and Freeland has handed righties nineteen home runs — which is Salvador Perez, Nick Loftin and Tyler Tolbert, three of the four Royals bats actually swinging it right now. Kansas City is a beaten-up ballclub playing out a road trip, no argument. But this is a coin flip dressed up as a favorite, and when the market wants me to lay a buck and a quarter on a 44-67 team missing its best hitter behind its worst starter, I'll take the other side and the plus money.

The surface tells you Kyle Freeland is 2-10 with a 7.34 and Seth Lugo is 4-6 with a 4.22, and that's a mismatch you could drive a truck through. It isn't. Strip out the sequencing and the park and you get Lugo at a 5.38 expected mark and Freeland at 5.63 — same pitcher, different luck. Lugo's been living on it; Freeland's been buried by it. Both of them are throwing at altitude this afternoon where the curveball Lugo leans on for chase flattens out and Freeland's cutter is exactly what it's been all year. I'm not buying an edge on either arm, in either direction. Which means this game gets decided by the nine names, and that's where the number stops making sense to me.

Colorado wrote out a lineup this afternoon without Hunter Goodman in it. Thirty-three homers, a club record for a catcher, four hits and five ribbies last night, and the loudest bat in the building — sitting the day before he might get shipped to New York or Boston. Kyle Karros, four for eight in this series, also out. That leaves Brett Sullivan hitting eighth in front of a Johnston-Julien-Tovar stretch that's been closer to .150 than .250 for two weeks. Meanwhile the Rockies are 11-25 in series finales and 14-29 the day after a win, and Freeland has handed righties nineteen home runs — which is Salvador Perez, Nick Loftin and Tyler Tolbert, three of the four Royals bats actually swinging it right now. Kansas City is a beaten-up ballclub playing out a road trip, no argument. But this is a coin flip dressed up as a favorite, and when the market wants me to lay a buck and a quarter on a 44-67 team missing its best hitter behind its worst starter, I'll take the other side and the plus money.

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GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Brewers· +113

First pitch just after noon in Anaheim, sun out, 88 degrees, light breeze off the north, and Milwaukee carrying a broom into the last day of a six-game trip. Jacob Misiorowski against Walbert Ureña, and the board has the Brewers up to -234 after sitting at -215 before sunrise. Here's what caught me about that move: pull the vig out of both sides and the market's opinion right now is the same opinion it had at five this morning — about a 67 percent Brewers game, then and now. The number climbed nineteen cents and the actual read didn't budge an inch. That isn't new information getting priced in. That's a wider hold, and somebody has to pay for it. Part of what's dragging on this price is yesterday's noise. The Angels scratched José Soriano on Saturday with the deadline forty-eight hours out and ran Brent Suter as an opener, and a team visibly taking itself apart tends to get shaded a little heavier the following afternoon too. But Saturday was Saturday. Today they hand the ball to Ureña, who has allowed one earned run or fewer in five of his last six starts — he walks his share, eight in the last three, and he doesn't finish games, but he's a real starter, not a patch job. On the other side, Misiorowski is the best arm in the sport and he is also on a leash: four innings on July 20, five on July 26, Murphy openly managing him back from the layoff and saying out loud it wasn't only caution. Both of these outings end in the fifth. This is a bullpen game wearing an ace matchup's clothes, and the back end that already worked Friday and Saturday belongs to Milwaukee — Uribe and Megill both. Anaheim's arms got the off day in between, and nobody there threw on consecutive nights. So I'm not laying -234 with a road team whose ninth-inning guy is on day three at the end of a trip. Give me the Angels and the run at plus money: +1.5 at +113. This is a club built for exactly this ticket whether it wants to be or not — thirty percent of their season has come down to a single run and they've lost twenty of those, which is a miserable way to live and a perfectly fine way to cash. Add the one-run losses to the outright wins and the Angels have brought this side home in 56 percent of their games while the window is asking me for 47. Last night they lost 3-1; one more swing and that's a winner. What beats me is Milwaukee hanging a crooked number in the second and turning this into the same laugher they've already had twice in this park, and I won't pretend a 42-69 team on a five-game slide is a comfortable place to put money. It doesn't have to be comfortable. It has to be cheaper than it's worth, and at +113 it is.

Part of what's dragging on this price is yesterday's noise. The Angels scratched José Soriano on Saturday with the deadline forty-eight hours out and ran Brent Suter as an opener, and a team visibly taking itself apart tends to get shaded a little heavier the following afternoon too. But Saturday was Saturday. Today they hand the ball to Ureña, who has allowed one earned run or fewer in five of his last six starts — he walks his share, eight in the last three, and he doesn't finish games, but he's a real starter, not a patch job. On the other side, Misiorowski is the best arm in the sport and he is also on a leash: four innings on July 20, five on July 26, Murphy openly managing him back from the layoff and saying out loud it wasn't only caution. Both of these outings end in the fifth. This is a bullpen game wearing an ace matchup's clothes, and the back end that already worked Friday and Saturday belongs to Milwaukee — Uribe and Megill both. Anaheim's arms got the off day in between, and nobody there threw on consecutive nights.

So I'm not laying -234 with a road team whose ninth-inning guy is on day three at the end of a trip. Give me the Angels and the run at plus money: +1.5 at +113. This is a club built for exactly this ticket whether it wants to be or not — thirty percent of their season has come down to a single run and they've lost twenty of those, which is a miserable way to live and a perfectly fine way to cash. Add the one-run losses to the outright wins and the Angels have brought this side home in 56 percent of their games while the window is asking me for 47. Last night they lost 3-1; one more swing and that's a winner. What beats me is Milwaukee hanging a crooked number in the second and turning this into the same laugher they've already had twice in this park, and I won't pretend a 42-69 team on a five-game slide is a comfortable place to put money. It doesn't have to be comfortable. It has to be cheaper than it's worth, and at +113 it is.

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GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Athletics· -126

Sunday in West Sacramento, 4:05 local start, the thermometer chasing 100 and the wind drifting out toward right field. This is game seven of a homestand for a club that has lost four in a row, eight of its last ten, and has not beaten Detroit in five tries this season — including a 13-1 dismantling on Friday and an 8-6 loss last night. Getaway day for both sides, deadline dust still in the air in the visiting clubhouse, and the home team hands the ball to a rookie left-hander to keep from being swept out of its own building. Gage Jump has thrown 63 innings across twelve starts and has finished the sixth exactly once in his last six turns. He lives on a 96 mph four-seamer he throws nearly half the time, and hitters are batting .298 against it with a .343 xwOBA — the pitch he needs most is the one getting squared. Detroit rolls out six right-handed bats against him, and right-handers have taken him deep five times in 174 at-bats. When he leaves in the fifth, which is the pattern, it goes to a staff carrying a 5.37 ERA and a 1.49 WHIP, one that lost Leiter to season-ending hip surgery, worked three arms last night with Blewett up for the second time in three days, and optioned Morales out of the group Saturday after he threw 47 pitches. Meanwhile the lineup behind Jump is missing Kurtz — 21 homers, a .991 OPS at home, off the card two straight days with the hand — plus Langeliers, Rooker and Gelof. Tommy White has put 22 balls in play recently without a barrel. McNeil is averaging 81 off the bat. There is very little left in that order that scares anybody. The honest risk: Montero got knocked around his last time out, nine hits in 4.1 against Baltimore with his swing-and-miss rate falling off a cliff, and he's a fly-ball pitcher walking into a park that plays 1.07 with the breeze headed the right way for the wrong reasons. Detroit's own late innings aren't sealed either — Finnegan handed back three runs in a third of an inning last night, and Vest is done for the year. That's precisely why I want the moneyline and not the plus-money run line: the A's are 15-15 in one-run games and they put four on the board in the last two innings Saturday, which is exactly how a minus-1.5 ticket dies. The number was -110 this morning and it's -126 now, so I'm paying up after the move and I don't love that part. I'm taking it anyway. The distance between these two rosters today is wider than a 56% price.

Gage Jump has thrown 63 innings across twelve starts and has finished the sixth exactly once in his last six turns. He lives on a 96 mph four-seamer he throws nearly half the time, and hitters are batting .298 against it with a .343 xwOBA — the pitch he needs most is the one getting squared. Detroit rolls out six right-handed bats against him, and right-handers have taken him deep five times in 174 at-bats. When he leaves in the fifth, which is the pattern, it goes to a staff carrying a 5.37 ERA and a 1.49 WHIP, one that lost Leiter to season-ending hip surgery, worked three arms last night with Blewett up for the second time in three days, and optioned Morales out of the group Saturday after he threw 47 pitches. Meanwhile the lineup behind Jump is missing Kurtz — 21 homers, a .991 OPS at home, off the card two straight days with the hand — plus Langeliers, Rooker and Gelof. Tommy White has put 22 balls in play recently without a barrel. McNeil is averaging 81 off the bat. There is very little left in that order that scares anybody.

The honest risk: Montero got knocked around his last time out, nine hits in 4.1 against Baltimore with his swing-and-miss rate falling off a cliff, and he's a fly-ball pitcher walking into a park that plays 1.07 with the breeze headed the right way for the wrong reasons. Detroit's own late innings aren't sealed either — Finnegan handed back three runs in a third of an inning last night, and Vest is done for the year. That's precisely why I want the moneyline and not the plus-money run line: the A's are 15-15 in one-run games and they put four on the board in the last two innings Saturday, which is exactly how a minus-1.5 ticket dies. The number was -110 this morning and it's -126 now, so I'm paying up after the move and I don't love that part. I'm taking it anyway. The distance between these two rosters today is wider than a 56% price.

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GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Mariners· +122

Sunday matinee at T-Mobile, rubber game of three, and the guy on the mound for Seattle has spent the whole weekend hearing his own name read aloud in trade columns. Kirby takes the ball anyway, forty-eight hours from the deadline. This morning the board had the Mariners at -134. It's -147 now. Somebody likes the home side more than they did at five in the morning. I don't. Taj Bradley is the better arm in this game right now and it isn't especially close over the last six weeks — thirty-seven innings, twelve earned, forty-eight strikeouts across his last six starts, and he's handed his bullpen at least five innings every single time out. What matters more than the line is the shape of it. His cutter misses bats on four of every ten swings and his splitter drags hitters out of the zone at a rate that borders on unfair, and he's walking into a lineup built to chase. Cal Raleigh is hitting .162 and swinging through better than four of every ten pitches. Josh Naylor is chasing at nearly half. Colt Emerson hasn't found much of anything in two weeks. Seattle scores four a game in a good month and they've scored three and a half over the last ten. Bradley's two best pitches go straight at the hole in that lineup. Kirby's the one carrying the leaks today. He throws a sinker one pitch in five, hitters neither chase it nor miss it, and they've hit .320 off it; the curveball has been hit at .436. Last time out in Texas he got four innings and surrendered four home runs. Ryan Jeffers hits second for Minnesota with the hottest bat on the roster and slugs .885 against sinkers — that's the at-bat I'm buying. The honest objection is the Minnesota bullpen, because every arm in it worked yesterday, but Bradley's been going six-plus and Dean Kremer was activated this morning with a completely fresh arm. Two thin offenses in a park that eats runs gets decided late and close, and I'd rather be holding the plus number when it does. Twins, at a price the Mariners haven't earned.

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GARY'S PICK

MLBvs Giants· -131

Four o'clock at Petco, last game of the set, and San Diego walks in still dusting itself off from Cronenworth's two-out single Saturday night. Giants fly to Texas after this. Padres fly to Arizona. Six games in seven days for both, and neither one is pretending otherwise. What has my attention is the board: San Francisco opened this morning at +132 and got pushed to +109. The market read two headlines — Kyle Hart on the mound means a two-inning start and a bullpen day, and Tatis is off the lineup card — and moved a quarter of the way across. Both of those are real things. I just don't think they're worth what the move charged for them. This is the third patchwork start San Diego has run in this series. The results were 7-0 and 6-5. Márquez and Matsui covered eight of nine on Friday and the Giants never got a hand on them. Stammen has been sequencing this staff all week and it has held up in front of me, on this field, against this lineup. So I'm not paying up to fade a formula that's already worked twice. What I like better is the shape of Roupp's afternoon. He leans on the sinker more than a third of the time, and the three bats hitting third, fourth and sixth for San Diego do their damage on exactly that pitch. France has been the best hitter in this park for two weeks running. Campusano has hit everything since he got the mask back. Machado is up to four homers in fifteen days. Going the other way, the Giants send six left-handed bats at a left-handed starter with Devers hitting cleanup, and Devers has spent the whole season unable to solve a lefty. Susac, who's been their most dangerous bat all series, isn't catching. That club is 21-37 away from home, 16-20 in finales, and it scored zero and five in the two it dropped here. The honest counterweight is Tatis. Losing him thins a lineup that's finally producing, and I'm not going to talk myself out of the fact that it matters. Miller is the other one — thirty pitches last night and his first blown save of the year, so the ninth may not look the way it usually looks. That's exactly why this is a moneyline and not a run line at plus money. I want the game, not the margin. San Diego at -131 is eleven cents better than it was at breakfast, on the side the money walked away from for reasons this series has already answered. Padres.

This is the third patchwork start San Diego has run in this series. The results were 7-0 and 6-5. Márquez and Matsui covered eight of nine on Friday and the Giants never got a hand on them. Stammen has been sequencing this staff all week and it has held up in front of me, on this field, against this lineup. So I'm not paying up to fade a formula that's already worked twice. What I like better is the shape of Roupp's afternoon. He leans on the sinker more than a third of the time, and the three bats hitting third, fourth and sixth for San Diego do their damage on exactly that pitch. France has been the best hitter in this park for two weeks running. Campusano has hit everything since he got the mask back. Machado is up to four homers in fifteen days. Going the other way, the Giants send six left-handed bats at a left-handed starter with Devers hitting cleanup, and Devers has spent the whole season unable to solve a lefty. Susac, who's been their most dangerous bat all series, isn't catching. That club is 21-37 away from home, 16-20 in finales, and it scored zero and five in the two it dropped here.

The honest counterweight is Tatis. Losing him thins a lineup that's finally producing, and I'm not going to talk myself out of the fact that it matters. Miller is the other one — thirty pitches last night and his first blown save of the year, so the ninth may not look the way it usually looks. That's exactly why this is a moneyline and not a run line at plus money. I want the game, not the margin. San Diego at -131 is eleven cents better than it was at breakfast, on the side the money walked away from for reasons this series has already answered. Padres.

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GARY'S PICK

MLB@ Dodgers· +153

Sunday night at Chavez Ravine, ninety-one degrees with the breeze pushing out to right, and the best team in the National League is one loss from being swept in its own ballpark by a club that spent all of July climbing over people. Emmet Sheehan gets the ball for Los Angeles. Jake Bennett gets it for Boston, and not one man in that Dodger lineup has ever stood in against him. This opened Dodgers -154 this morning. It's -186 now, and I can't find the thing that justifies thirty-plus cents. Contreras cleared his testing and he's hitting fourth. Bennett is on the mound as scheduled. Nothing broke Boston's way and nothing broke against them. What actually changed is Betts and Tucker back in the order after barely playing Saturday — Betts is 11-for-48 over two weeks, Tucker 6-for-38 — plus a national window, a fresh Skubal trade, and a room that isn't supposed to lose three straight at home. That's a mood, not a matchup, and I'll take the other side of a mood every time. Here's the part that actually decides it. Sheehan has not finished the sixth inning in his last six starts — 5, 5.1, 5.1, 4.1, 5, 3.1 — and his team went 1-5 in them. He's pitched better than his 4.95 says, I'll give him that, but he still hands the ball over in the fifth, and the bullpen he hands it to lost Klein to the elbow Saturday, has Stewart's shoulder back in the shop, is still waiting on Treinen, and has gotten a nine-run ERA out of Diaz since he came off the list. Roberts said it himself this week — sometimes you take one on the chin to protect the staff — and this is game six of a homestand with a flight to Chicago waiting. Boston goes the other direction: 9.1 relief innings used across three days, Whitlock and Chapman both fresh and both under a 2.05. Bennett's changeup is the pitch that carries him, a third of the swings miss it and more than half the takes chase it, and Freeman, Muncy and Rushing have all been quiet against that pitch all year. Ohtani will hurt him — he does damage on the sinker and the change both — but Ohtani bats once every nine spots. I'm being charged full Dodger freight for a starter who can't get through five and a bullpen held together with tape. Red Sox on the moneyline.

This opened Dodgers -154 this morning. It's -186 now, and I can't find the thing that justifies thirty-plus cents. Contreras cleared his testing and he's hitting fourth. Bennett is on the mound as scheduled. Nothing broke Boston's way and nothing broke against them. What actually changed is Betts and Tucker back in the order after barely playing Saturday — Betts is 11-for-48 over two weeks, Tucker 6-for-38 — plus a national window, a fresh Skubal trade, and a room that isn't supposed to lose three straight at home. That's a mood, not a matchup, and I'll take the other side of a mood every time.

Here's the part that actually decides it. Sheehan has not finished the sixth inning in his last six starts — 5, 5.1, 5.1, 4.1, 5, 3.1 — and his team went 1-5 in them. He's pitched better than his 4.95 says, I'll give him that, but he still hands the ball over in the fifth, and the bullpen he hands it to lost Klein to the elbow Saturday, has Stewart's shoulder back in the shop, is still waiting on Treinen, and has gotten a nine-run ERA out of Diaz since he came off the list. Roberts said it himself this week — sometimes you take one on the chin to protect the staff — and this is game six of a homestand with a flight to Chicago waiting. Boston goes the other direction: 9.1 relief innings used across three days, Whitlock and Chapman both fresh and both under a 2.05. Bennett's changeup is the pitch that carries him, a third of the swings miss it and more than half the takes chase it, and Freeman, Muncy and Rushing have all been quiet against that pitch all year. Ohtani will hurt him — he does damage on the sinker and the change both — but Ohtani bats once every nine spots. I'm being charged full Dodger freight for a starter who can't get through five and a bullpen held together with tape. Red Sox on the moneyline.

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Player props

GARY'S PICK

ZACK WHEELERK'S OVER 8.5

MLBPhiladelphia Phillies· +168

Wheeler punched out at least nine hitters in four of his last five starts before the Miami game, and even in that one his whiff rate held right in line with every other outing this stretch — the two homers that day were mistakes over the plate, not a drop in stuff. Today he's facing an Orioles order that's already without Rutschman and Basallo behind the plate, and without Mountcastle or Westburg anywhere in the lineup — a shorthanded group that strikes out as a team more than the Phillies lineup does, and Wheeler's held opposing hitters to right around a .200 average or lower from both sides of the plate all year. Eight and a half feels light for what he's been doing to healthier lineups than this one.

GARY'S PICK

ALEC BOHMRBI OVER 0.5

MLBPhiladelphia Phillies· +208

Bohm's driven in thirteen runs across his last fifteen games — that's not a hot week, that's a hot month — and he's doing it hitting cleanup behind a Phillies top of the order that's doing damage right now, Turner especially. He's also two-for-five with no strikeouts in his career against Bradish specifically. Getting plus money on a guy who's knocked in a run more nights than not over the last two weeks, hitting right behind the exact bats getting on in front of him, is a number the board is underpricing.

GARY'S PICK

CJ ABRAMSTOTAL BASES OVER 2.5

MLBWashington Nationals· +212

Eight home runs in his last fifteen games, a .370 average, an OPS over 1.300 in that stretch. That's not one lucky night carrying an average, that's sustained hard contact, and it's arriving right as Atlanta hands the ball to a pitcher who was pitching in Gwinnett as of this morning. Abrams does his damage against right-handers — a .303 average with a near-1.000 OPS against them this year, twenty-three of his home runs have come against right-handed pitching. Ritchie's two most-used pitches are his four-seamer and his sinker, and both have been hit hard against him all season. Abrams has already shown he can get to Atlanta's staff this series. I don't need a home run here, just hard contact, and two-plus total bases at plus money is a fair price for how he's swinging it right now.

GARY'S PICK

CADE CAVALLIPITCHER OUTS OVER 17.5

MLBWashington Nationals· +100

Cavalli's building up, not breaking down. He's gone six innings or more in four of his last five starts, topped by a seven-inning, thirteen-strikeout outing against Boston. The one short start in that stretch was a specific bad matchup against Pittsburgh, not a sign of trouble — he came right back and kept missing bats after it. Washington has no reason to manage his workload carefully today, no unusual bullpen plan in place. When a starter who's stretching out gets me even money to clear eighteen outs, I'm taking it.

GARY'S PICK

GEORGE SPRINGERTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBToronto Blue Jays· +137

Springer's locked in right now — pushing a .950 OPS over his last fifteen games with real power showing up in the box score, and the contact backs it up. He's squaring the ball up hard and consistently, not riding a few lucky bloopers. The guy on the mound is walking into this one banged up. Liberatore's allowed seventeen hits combined in his last two starts, and he's letting hard contact through at a worse rate than the pitcher on the other side tonight. A hitter seeing the ball this well against a starter bleeding contact quality is exactly the spot where one good swing turns into extra bases. Plus money for a guy performing like this is a number worth taking.

GARY'S PICK

ALEC BURLESONHITS OVER 1.5

MLBSt. Louis Cardinals· +195

Burleson's been red hot for two weeks running, hitting well over .350 with an OPS pushing .830 over his last fifteen games, and that's across a deep enough sample to trust it. He's a lefty stepping into a matchup where left-handed hitters have made Scherzer look every bit his age this year — a thousand-plus OPS and a home run every dozen at-bats or so. Given where Scherzer's workload has been trending, Burleson is likely to see him more than once before a hook, and if the bullpen has to cover extra innings behind a starter who hasn't gone deep all season, that just means more at-bats for a St. Louis order that's finally starting to swing it well. Two hits is a real ask, but the form and the matchup point the same direction, and the price pays well for taking that stance.

GARY'S PICK

GAVIN WILLIAMSK'S OVER 7.5

MLBCleveland Guardians· +156

Williams has turned into a strikeout machine over his last month — eleven or more strikeouts in four straight starts, a level he wasn't at back in June. His last time out in Cincinnati, hitters were missing on nearly half of their swings against him, and that kind of jump usually means the stuff has actually taken a step forward rather than the results just running hot. His ERA has stayed in line with the shape of his starts instead of outrunning the quality of what he's allowing, and he's at home today, where he's been more than a run better all season than he has been on the road. Arizona doesn't strike out as a team more than most, but there are hitters in the middle of this lineup — Marte, Tawa, Vargas — whose swing-and-miss numbers over the last couple weeks stand out compared to the rest of this lineup. Eight strikeouts is a total he's cleared in every start since he found this form, and the price still reads like it's asking whether he can repeat something he's already done four times in a row.

GARY'S PICK

STEVEN KWANTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBCleveland Guardians· +165

Kwan is running about as hot as anyone in this lineup, hitting well over .430 across his last two weeks, and he does his damage through volume of contact rather than waiting around for one big swing — exactly the profile that piles up total bases against a pitcher who's letting hitters square him up as often as Merrill Kelly has this year. Kelly's actually been more hittable against lefty bats than righties in terms of the damage he allows, and Kwan gets that side of the platoon today. He leads off, so he's guaranteed the most trips to the plate on the roster, and he's already clearing this number in about three of every four games recently. This is a bet on him doing what he's been doing, at a price that still treats it like a toss-up.

THE LONG SHOT

KYLE MANZARDOHR OVER 0.5

MLBCleveland Guardians· +420

Manzardo's carrying two home runs and an OPS over 1.200 through his last week, and the contact backs it up — three barreled balls in his last ten balls in play, a real jump in the quality of contact he's making. He's a left-handed bat facing a right-hander with a specific problem with lefty power — Kelly's given up a home run to a left-handed hitter at a rate of roughly one every seventeen at-bats this season, notably higher than what he allows to righties. This is a one-swing bet and I know it, but Manzardo is the hottest bat in this lineup right now, walking into the exact matchup that's hurt this pitcher most.

GARY'S PICK

MUNETAKA MURAKAMITOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBChicago White Sox· +158

Murakami's in the middle of a real power stretch — four homers over his last seven games — and the contact underneath it backs up the results instead of contradicting them, which is the part that usually gets waved off when a guy's just running hot. He's a left-handed bat that's mashed right-handed pitching all year, over 1.000 OPS with the bulk of his power coming against righties, and Jax has specifically been more hittable against lefties than righties in 2026, not less. Tropicana suppresses offense, but it doesn't suppress bat speed, and I don't need a home run to cash this — one extra-base knock does it.

GARY'S PICK

ANTHONY KAYPITCHER EARNED RUNS OVER 1.5

MLBChicago White Sox· -172

I'm not betting against Kay because of one bad month — I'm betting against him because tonight's lineup is built to find the one hole he has. Right-handed hitters have an .851 OPS against him this season, and Tampa Bay is running out six of them in the first nine spots. His expected ERA is sitting nearly a full run above his actual ERA, and he's allowing hard contact on close to 40 percent of balls in play, which tells me the results have been better than the process. He's already gone for two-plus earned runs in six of his last eight starts, before he ever saw a lineup shaped like this one. The price is short because the trend is obvious to everyone — I still think it's live.

GARY'S PICK

FRANCISCO LINDORTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBNew York Mets· +128

Lindor's in the best stretch of his season right now, and he's got real history against the guy on the mound today — thirty-three career at-bats against Alcantara with a couple of homers and an OPS north of .900. That's a hitter who sees this specific pitcher well, catching him at a moment where his overall swing looks as good as it's looked all year. I don't need a home run here — just one extra-base hit, or a two-hit day, both of which feel very much in play against an arm he's had success with before.

GARY'S PICK

LIAM HICKSTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBMiami Marlins· +130

Hicks has been one of the better all-around hitting catchers in the league all year — among qualified guys at the position, he entered the weekend near the top in both average and on-base percentage. Nearly everything he's done for power this season has come against right-handers, and that's exactly what he gets today: a right-hander making his first start in five years, clearly not the Mets' first choice for the assignment. I'm not asking for a home run here — a double, or a two-hit day, is well within what he's shown all season in this matchup, and the price is offering more doubt than I think is warranted.

THE LONG SHOT

GRIFFIN CONINEHR OVER 0.5

MLBMiami Marlins· +423

Conine's been running one of the best power stretches on this roster for close to a month — seven homers and eleven RBIs over his last twenty-one games, and it hasn't cooled off, with three more homers in the last week alone. That's an established run, not a one-week blip, and he's kept producing right through a stretch where his name has circulated in trade rumors — this Miami group has been playing like a team with its eyes on October, not the deadline. Against a pitcher who hasn't thrown a competitive big league inning in five years, I like paying for the power at this number.

GARY'S PICK

NICK GONZALESH+R+RBI OVER 1.5

MLBPittsburgh Pirates· +101

He's hitting .354 over his last 15 games with a strikeout rate that says the average isn't an accident — 19% whiff is about as clean a bat-to-ball profile as anyone on this board. He's also a day-game hitter specifically, .323 with an .874 OPS in day games this year, and this one starts at 1:40 in the afternoon. Yes, he's a right-handed bat drawing the tougher side of Chase Burns's platoon split, and Burns has flat-out owned right-handed hitters this season. But Gonzales isn't a swing-and-miss right-hander — he puts the bat on the ball, and this number only needs one hit plus a run or an RBI to hit. Combine that contact profile with how hot he's been and the plus-money price on what's basically been an 80 percent outcome over his last 15 games, and I'm taking the number.

GARY'S PICK

BRANDON LOWEH+R+RBI OVER 1.5

MLBPittsburgh Pirates· -110

Lowe is running a .452 average over his last week with three barreled balls in that stretch — this isn't empty contact, the exit-velocity data backs up the hot streak. He's in the two-hole tonight, which means at-bats and RBI chances both, and Burns, for as dominant as he's been overall, has actually given up more damage to left-handed bats than right — 11 home runs allowed to lefties against just 2 to righties this season. Lowe has cleared this exact number in two out of every three games over his last 15. I don't need him to do anything he hasn't already been doing all week.

GARY'S PICK

YORDAN ALVAREZTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBHouston Astros· -110

Alvarez is in one of those stretches where mistakes get punished and quality contact keeps finding grass — well over a thousand OPS points over his last two weeks, and it isn't cheap contact. Rocker leans on his sinker almost three times in ten pitches, and that's been the softest pitch in his arsenal all year, hit around .320 with an ugly slugging number against it. That's the exact pitch Alvarez does the most damage on. He's also a left-handed bat seeing a pitcher who's been considerably more hittable against lefties than righties this season, and with anyone on base Alvarez has been about as dangerous a hitter as there is in the league. Roof's shut, conditions are dead calm, nothing here working against the ball travelling. One extra-base knock covers it, and I think the swing decisions point that way more often than not today.

GARY'S PICK

PETER LAMBERTPITCHER OUTS OVER 17.5

MLBHouston Astros· -120

Lambert has simply owned the Rangers — under .200 against him for his career, and the one time he faced them already this year he worked six innings on three hits. He's also catching Texas about as low as they've been all season: Jung's out, Foscue isn't even in the lineup after going cold, and Seager just came back from a long absence with a day-game track record that's never been strong to begin with. Lambert doesn't need to miss a ton of bats against a lineup this shorthanded and this cold. He's worked at least five innings in every one of his last six turns, and this looks like one of the longer ones.

GARY'S PICK

COLIN REAPITCHER HITS ALLOWED OVER 4.5

MLBChicago Cubs· -120

Rea's been hit hard in five of his last six turns, and the expected numbers say his ERA has actually been a little better than what he's earned — that's not a pitcher due for a correction in his favor, that's one due for more of the same. He's letting hitters square him up at a 40% hard-hit clip, and today's Yankees lineup runs left-handed at the top and through the middle, which is the side that's given him the higher average against all year. The wind blowing in tonight knocks down fly balls, sure, but a ball that dies on the track still counts the same as a clean single. I want the hits total, not the power.

GARY'S PICK

GERRIT COLEK'S OVER 6.5

MLBNew York Yankees· +105

Cole's stuff is playing at full strength right now — mid-to-upper 90s heat, a slider and a changeup both missing bats north of 23%, a curveball he can bury when he's ahead in the count. He's worked into the sixth or deeper in four of his last six turns and struck out at least seven in four of those same six. This Cubs lineup has real swing-and-miss in the middle of the order too — Crow-Armstrong, Swanson, and Suzuki have all been chasing in that 22-to-32% range lately. He's owned this opponent for a long time and I don't see today breaking that pattern. Plus money on the over is the number I want.

GARY'S PICK

KYLE FREELANDPITCHER EARNED RUNS OVER 3.5

MLBColorado Rockies· +122

Freeland against this lineup, in this park, on a hundred-degree afternoon, is about as soft a matchup as this board offers. He's carrying a 7.34 ERA into the start and it's not an unlucky number — he's allowed four or more earned runs in four of his last six outings, and his road ERA is actually worse than what he's done at Coors, which tells me the problem is stuff and command, not just thin air. Kansas City runs right-handed through the middle of its order, and right-handed hitters have hit him at a rate north of .300 with a pile of home runs allowed this year. Add the heat and the altitude working together, and I think the runs get to him again today. A coin-flip price on a pitcher who's cleared this number in two of every three recent starts is a number I want.

GARY'S PICK

SETH LUGOPITCHER WALKS OVER 1.5

MLBKansas City Royals· +102

Lugo issuing two walks a start has been close to automatic — it's shown up in five of his last six outings, and the lone exception was a start where he issued none at all. That's an unusually tight, repeatable pattern for a pitching prop, and a price sitting at even money isn't pricing that consistency in. He works off a wide mix — sinker, cutter, four-seamer, a curveball down in the high seventies, a sweeper — and that arsenal has missed a good number of bats without him consistently living around the strike zone. Command that lives on the edges keeps producing walks regardless of how the rest of the outing goes. I don't need Lugo to have a bad night for this to land — I just need him to keep doing what he's done in six straight starts.

THE LONG SHOT

SALVADOR PEREZHR OVER 0.5

MLBKansas City Royals· +310

Perez has gone deep five times in his last fifteen games, and he's a right-handed bat walking into the exact matchup that's hurt Freeland most all season — right-handers are hitting him at a rate north of .300 with nineteen home runs allowed. That split has held up over a full year, not just one bad month, and it's paired with a road ERA that's actually worse than his Coors number. Add a hundred-degree afternoon with the ball carrying at altitude, and this is about as favorable a set of conditions as a power bat gets. Perez doesn't need to be locked in at the plate for this to hit — he's a pure-power threat who does damage in bursts, and his recent contact has been hard enough that he's squaring balls up even in games where the average doesn't show it. Plus-three-ten on a threat like this, in this park, against this arm, is a number I'm taking.

GARY'S PICK

JACOB MISIOROWSKIK'S OVER 9.5

MLBMilwaukee Brewers· +106

Twelve strikeouts in five innings his last time out — that's a pitcher getting more dangerous the shorter Milwaukee keeps his leash, not less. His whiff rate has climbed start to start and sat at 50% in that last outing. He's averaged nine strikeouts a start over his last six regardless of how deep he's gone, and the lineup he's facing today chases pitches and swings through fastballs at a rate that plays right into his hand. This Angels group is stripped down and playing out the string before tomorrow's trade deadline. Getting plus money on a total this pitcher has been clearing more often than not, with his stuff trending up rather than down, is the number I want.

GARY'S PICK

JAKE BAUERSTOTAL BASES OVER 1.5

MLBMilwaukee Brewers· +185

Bauers set a new career high in homers this weekend and he's hitting .444 over his last week doing it. This isn't a fluky hot streak from nowhere — his damage all year has come against right-handed pitching, and that's exactly what's on the mound for the Angels today. He's driving the ball with real authority right now, and I don't see anything in what Ureña's shown lately that changes that. One extra-base hit or a two-hit day gets this done, and I like the price for a hitter running this hot against a matchup that favors him.

GARY'S PICK

HAO-YU LEEH+R+RBI OVER 1.5

MLBDetroit Tigers· -118

Lee's been on base in almost every game he's played the last two weeks — a hit in 12 of his last 15, and it's not just empty singles, he's barreled the ball twice in his last eleven balls in play, more than you'd expect from a bottom-of-the-order bat. Getting to two combined hits, runs, and RBIs doesn't ask much of a guy reaching base at that rate, especially hitting in front of Max Clark and behind Torkelson and Valencia, both of whom are locked in right now too. I don't need him to do anything special here, just keep doing what he's already been doing.

GARY'S PICK

GAGE JUMPK'S OVER 6.5

MLBOakland Athletics· +181

Jump's stuff and his results have been two different stories all year — a four-and-a-half ERA masks a slider and a sweeper that hitters flat can't find, whiffing on close to a third of their swings against both. When he's had the ball long enough to use them, he's punched out seven or more in five of his last eight starts. The Tigers lineup gives him some real swing-and-miss to work with too — Lee's swinging and missing more than anyone else in that lineup right now, and Torkelson and Valencia both have some chase in their game. The walks and the short outings are why his ERA looks the way it does, but the strikeout stuff has been the one consistent part of his game all year, and at this price I don't need him to fix anything else to cash it.

THE LONG SHOT

GLEYBER TORRESHR OVER 0.5

MLBDetroit Tigers· +525

Torres has gone deep twice in his last week even while his average has cooled, which tells me the swing's still on time even when the results haven't all dropped in. He gets a real look from the right side tonight — right-handed hitters have out-slugged lefties against Jump this season, and he's already allowed five home runs to right-handed bats compared to two against lefties. Jump lives with his fastball up in the zone, and hitters have batted .298 against it this year. Add a ballpark playing small in the summer heat, and Torres running into another one is a number I want at this price.

GARY'S PICK

RYAN JEFFERSHITS OVER 0.5

MLBMinnesota Twins· -172

Jeffers has a hit in 14 of his last 15 games — that's about as locked-in as a hitter gets right now. He's mashing the sinker this season, over .450 with an .885 slugging mark against it, and Kirby throws his own sinker better than one in every five pitches at 97 miles an hour. Kirby's stuff has been erratic start to start, and Jeffers is seeing the ball well against exactly the pitch he'll get a steady diet of tonight. The price is short because a hitter running this hot deserves to be favored, and I'll lay it.

GARY'S PICK

GEORGE KIRBYPITCHER HITS ALLOWED OVER 5.5

MLBSeattle Mariners· +125

Kirby's results have been better than his contact quality all year — hitters are running a .331 mark against him — and he's allowed at least six hits in five of his last six starts, including a four-homer meltdown his last time out against Texas. Minnesota's lineup is rolling, seven wins in their last ten with several bats running hot underneath the top of the order, and they get him at home in the finale of this set. Plus money on a number he's cleared almost every time out is value I want.

GARY'S PICK

TY FRANCEH+R+RBI OVER 1.5

MLBSan Diego Padres· -114

France is doing everything right at the plate right now — better than a .390 average across his last two weeks, and his career numbers say day games are where he's most comfortable, which is exactly the window today's game falls into. He hits cleanup in a lineup that's won seven of eight, and he's getting to this number almost every time out lately. This isn't a hunch, it's a hitter running as hot as anyone on this roster stepping into a matchup that doesn't ask him to change a thing.

GARY'S PICK

MANNY MACHADOH+R+RBI OVER 1.5

MLBSan Diego Padres· -110

Machado has already gotten to Roupp for a homer in a small sample against him, and the quality of contact he's putting on sinkers this year says he should have more to show than his average suggests — the loud outs haven't all turned into hits yet. He's in the middle of a four-homer two-week stretch in the middle of a lineup that's been scoring. Getting to a hit, a run, or an RBI combined more than once tonight isn't asking much from a bat this hot against a pitch he's already proven he can find.

THE LONG SHOT

JACKSON MERRILLHR OVER 0.5

MLBSan Diego Padres· +600

Merrill's turning contact into real thump right now — five home runs in his last fifty-four at-bats, exit velocity sitting around 93 and a half over that stretch, two barrels in his last twenty-one balls in play. That's bat speed, not a bloop streak. Roupp leans on his sinker more than a third of the time, and it's the one pitch in his arsenal that's gotten hit hard all year — the expected numbers on it are bad for a primary offering. Roupp's full-season line against lefties is actually fine, so I'm not calling this free money. But the hitter showing up the last two weeks is hitting the ball harder than his own platoon history suggests, against a pitcher whose go-to pitch keeps finding barrels. I'll ride the hot hand over the seasonal split here.

THE LONG SHOT

KYLE SCHWARBERHR OVER 0.5

MLBPhiladelphia Phillies· +400

Bradish throws his four-seamer less than anything else in his mix, and there's a reason for that — hitters are batting .301 against it, the softest number on his entire arsenal. Schwarber has built a career on exactly that mistake: .575 slugging against four-seamers, and against right-handers as a group he's sitting on 21 home runs in 239 at-bats this season, right around one every eleven trips. He's been quiet the last two weeks, chasing more than he's connecting, but that's never been the tell with this bat — Schwarber goes cold for stretches and then turns one hanging fastball into the whole game. The delay already ate into today's plate appearances for everybody, so I'm not counting on volume here, I just want him seeing this specific pitch when he does get up.

THE LONG SHOT

MANNY MACHADOHR OVER 0.5

MLBSan Diego Padres· +800

Machado's already got a track record against Roupp — four hits in ten career at-bats, one of them gone — and his current swing backs it up. Sixteen hits in his last fifty-six at-bats with four home runs mixed in, and the contact quality is the best anywhere on this board: three barrels in his last twenty-two balls in play, whiff rate down under a quarter of his swings. That's a bat squaring the ball up consistently, not a hitter running hot on bloopers. Eight-to-one only needs to hit once in a while to cash, and everything in the recent sample says this stretch is real.

THE LONG SHOT

BRANDON LOWEHR OVER 0.5

MLBPittsburgh Pirates· +850

Chase Burns has been a completely different pitcher against lefties than righties this season — eleven home runs allowed in 251 at-bats against left-handed hitters, only two in 160 against righties. That's not a small-sample blip, that's a full season of a real weakness, and Lowe is the kind of hitter positioned to exploit it. He's carrying a .452 average and two home runs over his last seven games, with three barreled balls in his last 22 batted balls — the underlying contact matches the results, this isn't just a hot streak of bloopers. He's hitting second in a Pirates lineup that's actually scoring right now, which means more at-bats and more looks at Burns before the slider starts working. Great American Ball Park plays small in every direction. Plus-850 on a left-handed hitter seeing the ball this well against a pitcher with this much platoon exposure is a number worth being on.

THE LONG SHOT

BRYCE HARPERHR OVER 0.5

MLBPhiladelphia Phillies· +625

Harper's numbers against right-handed pitching this season are absurd — .989 OPS, 19 home runs in 245 at-bats — and Bradish is a right-hander. He's 0-for-5 with a couple strikeouts against him personally, but five at-bats isn't a track record, it's a coin flip that landed tails once. He's also been the hottest bat in this lineup over the last week, north of a 1.000 OPS with a homer mixed in, and the small sample he has at this park has been loud. The rain is the real variable in how much game anyone sees today, but Harper doesn't need at-bats to stack up the way a contact hitter does — he needs one mistake, and the version of him swinging the bat right now has been finding those.

THE LONG SHOT

JEREMY PENAHR OVER 0.5

MLBHouston Astros· +500

Peña is the one thing on this board that jumps off the page. Six home runs in his last fifteen games, three of them in the last week alone, and it isn't empty contact — he's been squaring the ball up through that stretch, not just riding a few lucky bounces. He's a right-handed bat against a right-handed starter today, a matchup that's historically been his best split by a wide margin, and he gets to do it at home, in a park that turns fly balls to left into home runs for a swing built to pull the ball with authority. Kumar Rocker's strikeout totals look the part, but what he's actually allowing doesn't match the shape — his fastball and sinker have both gotten hit hard all year, and this Astros lineup already has a piece of that story. They touched him for three home runs back on July 11, this season, this team, largely the same version of Rocker on the mound today. I'm not maxing this out. Rocker's actual damage by handedness has leaned tougher against righties than lefties this year, which cuts against the platoon edge Peña usually owns, and this is a day game, where his career numbers are solid but nowhere near what he's doing under the lights lately. Discount for both of those. But the bat, the park, and a pitcher whose contact quality allowed doesn't match his ERA still make this a homer I want at this price.

THE LONG SHOT

RANDY AROZARENAHR OVER 0.5

MLBSeattle Mariners· +900

He's not just hot, he's been the whole story of this series. Three home runs in his last seven games, and the most recent one walked off this exact series against this exact team less than twenty-four hours ago. That's not empty contact — his exit velocity has been sitting around 93 over that stretch, three barrels in his last 21 balls in play, both his chase and whiff numbers over that window are low. He's getting pitches to hit and squaring them up rather than reaching for them. He's also a right-handed bat with a real track record against right-handed pitching this season, and Taj Bradley is a pitcher whose fastball and curveball have both gotten hit hard all year even with a tidy ERA attached to his name — the strikeouts are real, but so is the loud contact when hitters connect. The one thing working against this: Bradley's given up his home runs to lefties at a much higher rate than to righties, so the platoon angle isn't doing me any favors here. I'm taking it anyway. The week Arozarena is having and the quality of contact behind it are enough to want a piece of this at plus-900.

THE LONG SHOT

TY FRANCEHR OVER 0.5

MLBSan Diego Padres· +650

France is hitting .393 with four home runs over his last fifteen games, and his power has always played better against right-handers than lefties — thirteen of his homers this year have come against exactly the arm he's facing tonight in Roupp. He's also a different hitter in day games, and this one gets going in the Petco afternoon. The thing keeping me from leaning harder is that his recent balls in play haven't been barreling much even as the results have stayed loud, which tells me part of this run has been placement as much as raw power. I still like the shape of the matchup enough to take the number.

THE LONG SHOT

PETE ALONSOHR OVER 0.5

MLBBaltimore Orioles· +500

Alonso's in the middle of a two-homer week and the underlying contact — exit velocity, barrels — backs it up as real rather than lucky. He's never faced Wheeler, so there's no history to lean on either way, but his production against fastballs and sinkers, the two pitches Wheeler goes to most, is exactly the shape of hitter I'd want in this matchup on paper. The difference between this pick and the other two is the pitcher: Wheeler is having one of his best seasons, missing bats at nearly a 40 percent clip start after start, so this isn't the soft matchup Schwarber and Harper are getting across the diamond. I still like the swing path enough to take him at this price, with the same rain-delay caveat on total at-bats hanging over the whole slate today.

THE LONG SHOT

DOMINIC CANZONEHR OVER 0.5

MLBSeattle Mariners· +800

Canzone's damage profile lines up with what Bradley throws most. He's slugging well over .600 against four-seam fastballs this season, and that's the pitch Bradley leans on more than anything else, just under half his total mix, and it's also the pitch that's given him the most trouble of anything in his regular mix. Canzone's been the hottest bat on this roster the last week, three home runs in his last seven games, and this is a day game, which happens to be exactly when he does his best hitting — his OPS in day games this year is close to a thousand, way up from his night numbers. The one thing that gives me pause is how often he chases, and Bradley's two best pitches, the cutter and the splitter, are both built to get exactly that kind of swing. If Bradley pitches him away with those all day, this one's quiet. But Bradley has to come with the fastball too, and when Canzone gets it, he doesn't miss it.

THE LONG SHOT

SAL STEWARTHR OVER 0.5

MLBCincinnati Reds· +340

Stewart is the hottest hitter in this game right now — two home runs, nine RBI, and an OPS over 1.000 across his last seven games, with an average exit velocity above 95 that tells me the contact is real and not just a few balls landing right. The matchup isn't clean: Mitch Keller has actually held right-handed hitters to a much lower level than lefties this year, and his sweeper is the exact pitch he leans on to put righties away. But Keller hasn't been a consistent pitcher start to start — he's allowed multiple home runs in a game twice in his last six outings — and Stewart is doing this kind of damage against everybody right now, at home, in a park that plays in his favor. At plus-340 I don't need this a lot more than once every four games to be worth it, and lately he's been clearing that bar.

THE LONG SHOT

KODY CLEMENSHR OVER 0.5

MLBMinnesota Twins· +600

Kirby's last start he gave up four home runs in four innings, and that's not a one-off stapled onto an otherwise clean season — he's allowed seven homers across his last six starts total, and the underlying numbers back it up, hitters are running a .331 wOBA against him this year with a 42 percent hard-hit rate. Clemens has three home runs in his last fifteen games and has real pop against right-handed pitching this season, fourteen homers worth in that split. Working against it: his track record against Kirby personally is thin and not pretty, one hit in seven career at-bats with a couple of strikeouts mixed in, and he's a clearly better hitter at night than during the day, which is what this is. But the pitcher is more of the story tonight than the hitter, and Clemens has enough in that bat to take advantage if Kirby's recent stretch is who he actually is right now.

GARY'S PICK

JAKE BENNETTPITCHER OUTS OVER 16.5

MLBBoston Red Sox· -105

Bennett's been a metronome - he's cleared this number in every one of his last six turns, working at least 5.2 every time and stretching to 7-plus twice. The matchup tonight is about as clean as it gets for a lefty: the Dodgers are trotting out five left-handed bats - Ohtani, Freeman, Tucker, Muncy, Rushing - against a pitcher who hasn't allowed a left-handed hitter a home run all season and is barely letting them hit .150. Boston's chasing a series sweep and has every reason to lean on him as long as he's dealing. This is the version of him they've gotten all year.

GARY'S PICK

FREDDIE FREEMANSINGLES OVER 0.5

MLBLos Angeles Dodgers· -110

Freeman is hitting .471 over his last fifteen games - twenty-four hits in fifty-one at-bats - and almost none of it has come with power, no homers in that span. That's a hitter putting the barrel on the ball and finding grass, which is exactly what this number is asking for. He's got a hit in twelve of his last fifteen games. I'm not letting the platoon split scare me off him tonight; he's seeing it too well right now.

THE LONG SHOT

CEDDANNE RAFAELAHR OVER 0.5

MLBBoston Red Sox· +800

Rafaela hit two more out last night and he's got three homers in this series alone, six over his last fifteen games. That's not empty batting average — the exit velocity and barrel rate back it up, he's squaring balls up and driving them to all fields right now. Sheehan has given up a homer in three of his last six starts, with the Dodgers losing five of those six games behind him. Eight hundred on a bat doing what his is doing right now, in a lineup spot he's currently owning, is a number worth taking. Streaks like this cool off eventually, but the underlying contact says there's real power behind it, not just a hot batting average.

THE LONG SHOT

WILLSON CONTRERASHR OVER 0.5

MLBBoston Red Sox· +430

Contreras is back in the cleanup spot tonight after clearing the concussion protocol, and Boston doesn't put him back in that spot if the swing isn't all the way there. He's already got two homers in his last two weeks and he's a bat that does damage in bunches — a dozen home runs at home this season alone, and this stretch has him seeing the ball as well as he has all year. Sheehan is walking in on a stretch where his team has lost five of his last six starts, giving up hard contact most nights he's out there. Four-thirty is fair value on a hitter this locked in against a starter who hasn't been missing enough barrels to keep the ball in the park.

THE LONG SHOT

TEOSCAR HERNANDEZHR OVER 0.5

MLBLos Angeles Dodgers· +400

Hernandez went deep last night and he's been doing damage all week, two homers in his last seven games. He hits right-handed, and Bennett's been a completely different pitcher depending on which side of the plate is standing in against him this year — nearly automatic against lefties, but he's given up real thump to right-handed bats. That's exactly the matchup Hernandez gets tonight, mid-stretch and seeing the ball well, in a lineup that's already taken the first two of this series and is playing loose. Four hundred is a number I'll take on a hitter who's already done it against this club once this series.

Research

189

PARK WEATHERNYY @ CHC
Wind blowing in 22 mph at Wrigley Field tonight
Twenty-two miles an hour in from left field at Wrigley is enough to kill anything hit in the air. The total sits at 6.5 tonight, and wind that strong tends to do the under's work on its own.
P final total 3 vs 6.5 (under lean)
TEAM RECORDMIN @ SEA
Twins 7-1 in Taj Bradley's last 8 starts
Same shape as a lot of these team-record-behind-a-pitcher stats — 7-1 says the Twins have found their rhythm on his turns, whether or not it's really about him specifically.
TEAM RECORDBOS @ LAD
Dodgers 1-7 in Emmet Sheehan's last 8 starts
1-7 looks damning until you check his actual stuff — the strikeout rate and WHIP are clean, so this record is telling you more about the lineup and a little bad luck than about Sheehan pitching badly.
TEAM RECORDPIT @ CIN
Reds 7-1 in Chase Burns's last 8 starts
Seven wins in eight starts is as much about Cincinnati's lineup showing up as it is about Burns dealing — except he's also been lights out in the first inning himself this year, so this isn't just a record padded by run support.
HEAD-TO-HEADDET @ OAK
Tigers are 5-0 vs Athletics this season
5-0 with an 8-6 win the last time out — Detroit's simply had Oakland's number all year, and they're catching a starter tonight who's nowhere near his season-long form.
CUT LISTARI tonight
Merrill Kelly
Starts tonight for ARI — 7.17 xERA behind a 4.86 ERA — the ERA is flattering him.
PLATOON EDGEMIA @ NYM
Liam Hicks (bats L) hits 1st against Robert Stock (RHP)
Hicks has an .878 OPS against right-handers this year against .521 the other way, and he leads off tonight facing righty Robert Stock. The favorable half of his season lines up right at the top of the order.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
PLATOON EDGESTL @ TOR
Alec Burleson (bats L) hits 3rd against Max Scherzer (RHP)
Burleson against right-handers is a completely different hitter than Burleson against lefties: .942 OPS versus .505. Scherzer throws right-handed and Burleson bats third tonight, so the good version of him is the one in the box.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB, 1 BB
STREAKCHW @ TB
TB games have gone UNDER 7 straight
Tampa Bay Rays games have stayed UNDER 7 straight — just 3.6 runs a night against an average line of 6.9. Tonight's number sits at 7.5.
P final total 10 vs 7.5
PLATOON EDGEMIL @ LAA
Brice Turang (bats L) gets a RHP from the 1st spot
Turang's platoon gap is enormous — .921 against righties, .588 against lefties — and Urena throws right-handed tonight. He's leading off right into the version of himself that actually hits.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
PLATOON EDGECHW @ TB
Sam Antonacci (bats L) hits 1st against Griffin Jax (RHP)
Antonacci splits hard by handedness, .851 against righties and .518 against lefties, and he's leading off tonight against right-hander Griffin Jax. That's the matchup working in his favor before anything else happens.
P 0-for-5, 0 TB
HEAT CHECKWSH @ ATL
CJ Abrams: 1.322 OPS in Last 15 Days
Abrams was already hitting .925 for the season. Over his last 15 days he's at 1.322, twenty-eight homers deep with a 1.5 total-bases number tonight for maybe the hottest bat on the whole slate.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
SITUATIONALSF @ SD
19.7 bullpen innings in 3 games for SD
Relievers have absorbed 19.7 innings over the last 3 games (German Marquez (5) and Randy Vasquez (4.7) the heaviest). SF's pen has thrown 10.7 over the same span.
P flagged side won 4-5
HEAT CHECKPHI @ BAL
Trea Turner: 1.099 OPS in Last 15 Days
Turner's been a different hitter for two weeks — a 1.099 OPS, nearly 400 points over his season mark. Sixteen homers on the year, and tonight's 1.5 total-bases line hasn't fully caught up to how hot he is.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB, 1 BB
HR THREATNationals @ Braves
CJ Abrams
Gary's Take Abrams is the best process-meets-form play on this board. He's been the hottest hitter in this lineup for two weeks running, eight homers in that stretch, and he's cleared this exact number in six of his last fifteen games.
P 0 HR — 0-for-4, 0 TB
HEAT CHECKSF @ SD
Jackson Merrill: 1.042 OPS in Last 15 Days
Merrill's last two weeks — a 1.042 OPS against a .673 season mark — is one of the bigger swings on the board tonight. The 4.5 total-bases number is a real ask, but he's playing like a guy who can clear it.
P 2-for-3, 5 TB, 1 BB
PLATOON EDGEKC @ COL
Mickey Moniak (bats L) gets a RHP from the 2nd spot
Moniak's .938 OPS against right-handers towers over the .595 he manages against lefties. Seth Lugo throws right-handed tonight, so the platoon matchup lines up clean.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB, 1 BB
TWO STARTSNew York Yankees — week of 7/27
Max Fried
Fried's week is already in the books — White Sox Monday, Cubs Saturday, both used. A 2.51 xERA is the best number on this list, which is exactly why there was never a start here worth skipping. Both starts already banked, nothing left to manage.
PLATOON EDGEMIA @ NYM
Kyle Stowers (bats L) draws Robert Stock (RHP), batting 2nd
Stowers carries an .864 OPS against righties compared to .515 against lefties, a split his blended season line doesn't show. He's batting second tonight against right-hander Robert Stock, right in his strong side.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
HEAT CHECKTEX @ HOU
Jeremy Pena: 1.275 OPS in Last 15 Days
Pena's last 15 days have produced a 1.275 OPS on top of an .889 season mark that was already strong. Twelve homers this year, and tonight's total-bases line sits at 1.5 for a hitter clearly seeing the ball well.
P 2-for-4, 5 TB
HEAD-TO-HEADTEX @ HOU
Astros are 8-4 vs Rangers this season
8-4 in the series with a one-run win the last time these two played — Houston's had this matchup's number more often than not, and Texas needs to find an answer somewhere tonight.
HEAD-TO-HEADWSH @ ATL
Braves are 7-3 vs Nationals this season
7-3 in the series and Atlanta hung 8 on them the last time out — this matchup has been lopsided all year. The one thing complicating it for the Braves: Washington's sending out the best version of Cavalli they've seen in a month tonight.
COOLING OFFSTL @ TOR
Jordan Walker: .540 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Max Scherzer
Walker is scuffling, .540 OPS over his last 15 against an .835 season mark, and tonight he technically draws Scherzer on his tougher side. That tougher side is still an .811 OPS against right-handers over 316 at-bats, so this isn't a matchup that buries him.
P 2-for-5, 2 TB
TEAM RECORDDET @ OAK
Tigers 6-2 in Keider Montero's last 8 starts
Tigers are 6-2 in Keider Montero's last 8 starts this season. He starts tonight.
TEAM RECORDTEX @ HOU
Astros 6-2 in Peter Lambert's last 8 starts
6-2 is a nice number for Lambert, but Houston's been rolling regardless — five straight wins with real run differential behind it. Hard to separate how much of this is him versus just a team playing well right now.
TEAM RECORDDET @ OAK
Athletics 2-6 in Gage Jump's last 8 starts
Oakland's won just twice in his last eight starts, and they're already 0-5 on the year against the Tigers walking in. Not a lot working in their favor tonight.
TEAM RECORDPHI @ BAL
Orioles 6-2 in Kyle Bradish's last 8 starts
6-2 with three straight wins on his turn — that's a real trend for Baltimore lately, not just a hot week or two.
TEAM RECORDSF @ SD
Giants 2-6 in Landen Roupp's last 8 starts
Giants are 2-6 in Landen Roupp's last 8 starts this season. He starts tonight.
TEAM RECORDMIL @ LAA
Brewers 6-2 in Jacob Misiorowski's last 8 starts
Milwaukee's 6-2 in his last eight starts and on a three-game winning streak with him on the mound, and they're walking into an Angels team that's lost five straight. The trends are stacked in the same direction here.
HEAD-TO-HEADMIA @ NYM
Marlins are 9-5 vs Mets this season
9-5 in the season series and Miami dropped 6 on them last time out — they've had success against this team all year. Tonight's more about the total though, given how these games have actually been playing lately.
PLATOON EDGEPHI @ BAL
Bryce Harper (bats L) gets a RHP from the 3rd spot
Harper against right-handers is a .989 OPS; against lefties it drops to .621. Bradish throws right tonight and Harper hits third, so the dominant version of him is the one taking at-bats.
P 1-for-3, 4 TB, 1 BB
COOLING OFFPIT @ CIN
Bryan Reynolds: .558 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Chase Burns
Reynolds is sliding, .558 OPS over his last 15 compared to .832 for the season, and Chase Burns tonight is technically his weaker platoon side too — though .820 against right-handers for the year is still a solid number. This reads more like a cold streak than a bad matchup.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB, 1 BB
COOLING OFFCHW @ TB
Tristan Peters: .254 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Griffin Jax
Peters has cratered over his last 15 days, a .254 OPS against a .741 season mark. Tonight's righty, Griffin Jax, is actually his better matchup at .786 for the year — a reasonable spot for him to come out of it.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB, 1 BB
PLATOON EDGECHW @ TB
Munetaka Murakami (bats L) hits 2nd against Griffin Jax (RHP)
Over 184 AB vs. Right, Munetaka Murakami owns a 1.028 OPS versus .708 in 82 AB the other way. He sees RHP Griffin Jax tonight hitting 2nd, where the platoon side lines up his way.
P 1-for-5, 2 TB
COOLING OFFCHW @ TB
Jonathan Aranda: .469 OPS in L15 — draws LHP Anthony Kay
Aranda is ice cold, .469 over his last 15 against an .806 season line, and tonight he faces a lefty in Anthony Kay, already his tougher side at .658 for the year. Two negatives stacked on each other here.
P 1-for-5, 1 TB
REGRESSIONSTL @ TOR
Max Scherzer: 9.49 ERA vs 6.16 xERA
That gap is mostly bad luck, not a mirage — his hard-contact numbers are ordinary. But a 1.82 WHIP and barely six strikeouts a game leaves no margin once runners get on, so even a better version of him tonight is still walking a tightrope.
P 6 IP, 1 ER, 5 K
TWO STARTSPhiladelphia Phillies — week of 7/27
Zack Wheeler
Marlins is done, Orioles is what's left today. A 2.65 xERA on the season is the kind of number that makes the second start a non-decision. Must-start — ride him into today's finale.
PLATOON EDGEPHI @ BAL
Dylan Beavers (bats L) draws Zack Wheeler (RHP), batting 1st
Beavers hits right-handers much better than lefties, .725 OPS against .450, and he leads off tonight against right-hander Zack Wheeler. The split favors him even against a good pitcher.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB
COOLING OFFMIA @ NYM
Otto Lopez: .512 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Robert Stock
Lopez has cooled off, .512 over his last 15 against an .836 season mark, and tonight's righty, Robert Stock, is technically his weaker side — though .805 against right-handers is still a fine number. This looks like a hitter working through a stretch, not a bad spot.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
STREAKMIA @ NYM
NYM games have gone UNDER 5 straight
Five straight unders with these games actually producing 5.4 runs a night against numbers that have averaged near 7.9 — and tonight's total still sits at 8.5. That's a wide gap between where the number is and how the games have gone.
P final total 2 vs 8.5
STREAKNYY @ CHC
NYY games have gone UNDER 5 straight
These games have produced just 7.2 combined runs a night against a recent pace near 10.7, and tonight's total already sits at 6.5 — well below that old baseline. Some of this trend is already baked into the line.
P final total 3 vs 6.5
STREAKTEX @ HOU
HOU have won 5 straight
A five-game streak backed by an 18-run differential is a team playing well beyond just getting by. Texas is walking into this at the wrong time, bullpen already stretched from working nine arms over the last three days.
P team won 3-7
STREAKMIL @ LAA
LAA have lost 5 straight
Five straight losses with an 11-run margin over that stretch, 3-6 across their last nine — a team scuffling on both sides of the ball. Facing one of the league's hotter arms tonight doesn't make it easier.
P team won 0-3
PLATOON EDGEPIT @ CIN
Brandon Lowe (bats L) draws Chase Burns (RHP), batting 2nd
Lowe's .908 OPS against righties dwarfs his .606 against lefties. He's batting second tonight against right-hander Chase Burns, right in the strong half of a real platoon split.
P 0-for-3, 0 TB
HEAT CHECKSF @ SD
Luis Rengifo: 1.062 OPS in Last 15 Days
Rengifo's OPS over his last 15 days sits more than 400 points above his season number. That 1.5 total-bases line looks light for how he's hitting the ball right now.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB, 1 BB
STREAKWSH @ ATL
ATL have won 5 straight
Five in a row with a 12-run differential over that stretch is a team clicking on both sides, 7-1 across their last eight. Washington's best arm in a month is the first real test that streak has seen.
P team won 2-4
STREAKKC @ COL
COL games have gone UNDER 5 straight
Five straight unders at Coors is the more surprising trend on the board tonight, given the ballpark. Production's been running well under tonight's number of late, though Freeland's own first-inning struggles are the thing that could break the pattern early.
P final total 9 vs 12
PLATOON EDGESTL @ TOR
Lars Nootbaar (bats L) gets a RHP from the 1st spot
Lars Nootbaar's vs. Right line (.741 OPS, 123 AB) sits well above his .483 mark the other way (30 AB). Tonight's starter Max Scherzer throws RHP, the hand he hits best.
P 1-for-5, 2 TB
BULLPENDET @ OAK
Detroit Tigers pen: 14.3 relief IP over their last 3 games
Madden needed three innings and 56 pitches in one outing, and three other arms have already gone twice in three days — De Jesus and Anderson are really the only fresh length sitting behind the starter tonight.
HEAT CHECKARI @ CLE
Steven Kwan: 1.001 OPS in Last 15 Days
Kwan's last two weeks have him at a 1.001 OPS, nearly 330 points above his .672 season mark. That's a big enough swing that tonight's 1.5 total-bases line is worth a second look.
P 1-for-2, 1 TB, 2 BB
HR THREATRed Sox @ Dodgers
Ceddanne Rafaela
Gary's Take He's gone deep in five of his last fifteen games, including a two-homer night just two days ago, and his own manager is calling him the biggest reason this team is rolling right now. That's not one hot swing, that's two weeks of squaring up mistakes.
P 1 HR — 2-for-5, 5 TB
HR THREATNationals @ Braves
Matt Olson
Gary's Take Olson has three home runs in his last seven games, and he's been barreling balls at a rate that says this stretch is real, not a fluke. He's a left-handed hitter, and Washington's starter has been considerably more hittable against lefties than righties all season.
P 1 HR — 2-for-4, 5 TB
BULLPENSF @ SD
San Diego Padres pen: 18 relief IP over their last 3 games
18 innings sounds heavy, but it's really two long starts from Márquez and Vásquez skewing the total — Matsui, Miller, and Morejon all only touched it once at light counts, so there's more fresh length here than the raw number suggests.
HEAT CHECKNYY @ CHC
Nico Hoerner: .958 OPS in Last 15 Days
Hoerner is hitting .958 over his last 15 days against a .676 season mark, a real hot stretch. Tonight's total-bases line is set at just 0.5, a low bar for a guy seeing the ball this well.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
TWO STARTSBoston Red Sox — week of 7/27
Payton Tolle
Like Fried, Tolle's whole week already happened — Athletics Monday, Dodgers Saturday. A 2.91 xERA is the number that earned him two starts nobody had to think twice about. Both starts already banked, nothing left to manage.
SITUATIONALCHW @ TB
CHW's bullpen has covered 16 innings over the last 3 games
That is 16 relief innings in 3 games, led by Noah Schultz (5) and Tyler Schweitzer (3). TB's pen has thrown 12 over the same span.
P flagged side won 9-1
HR THREATNationals @ Braves
Luis Garcia Jr.
Gary's Take Garcia has been the best hitter on either roster over the last week — eleven hits in his last thirty at-bats — and the quality of contact behind that surge is legitimate, he's squaring the ball up as hard as anyone recently. He's a left-handed bat with a strong track record against right-handed pitching for his career, and today's Atlanta starter has specifically struggled with lefties.
HR THREATRoyals @ Rockies
Willi Castro
Gary's Take Castro's already gone deep six times in his last fifteen games, three of them in the last four alone, and it's not empty box-score noise — the contact underneath that stretch is loud, some of the hardest-hit balls anyone in this lineup has put in play recently. His manager said it flat out after the last one: his at-bats have been good from both sides of the plate and the homers keep coming.
P 0 HR — 1-for-3, 1 TB, 1 BB
HEAD-TO-HEADCHW @ TB
Rays are 4-1 vs White Sox this season
4-1 in the series, though Tampa Bay had to grind out a 1-0 win the last time these two played — not a blowout matchup even with the lopsided record. Chicago's tired bullpen is the bigger story walking into tonight.
COOLING OFFNYY @ CHC
Ben Rice: .606 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Colin Rea
Rice has cooled from a huge season line, .606 over his last 15 against .925 overall, but he draws his good side tonight in righty Colin Rea, whom he's hit for a .993 OPS this year. A favorable matchup running into a slump.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
COOLING OFFPHI @ BAL
Brandon Marsh: .413 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Kyle Bradish
Marsh has gone cold, .413 over his last 15 against a .770 season mark, but tonight's matchup against righty Kyle Bradish is actually his stronger side — .817 for the year against right-handers. If he's due for a breakout, this is as good a spot as any.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB
COOLING OFFKC @ COL
Jake McCarthy: .582 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Seth Lugo
McCarthy has dipped to .582 over his last 15 days, down from an .818 season mark, and tonight's righty, Seth Lugo, is technically his weaker side, though .787 against right-handers is still solid. This reads more like a hitter due for a correction than a tough matchup.
P 1-for-5, 4 TB
HEAT CHECKTEX @ HOU
Joc Pederson: 1.261 OPS in Last 15 Days
Pederson was already hitting .858 for the season, and he's on an even bigger run lately, a 1.261 OPS over his last 15 days. Twenty homers this year, with tonight's total-bases line down at 0.5.
P 0-for-3, 0 TB
HR THREATRed Sox @ Dodgers
Shohei Ohtani
Gary's Take Ohtani doesn't need a favorable matchup to run into one, and this year he's actually hit left-handed pitching better than most hitters ever manage against same-side arms, ten home runs worth of proof. He's hitting near .300 at home, he's been squaring balls up all week with exit velocities that jump off the page, and hitting in the middle of a stacked lineup only helps.
P 0 HR — 1-for-3, 1 TB, 2 BB
HR THREATGiants @ Padres
Jackson Merrill
Gary's Take Merrill's turning contact into real thump right now — five home runs in his last fifty-four at-bats, exit velocity sitting around 93 and a half over that stretch, two barrels in his last twenty-one balls in play. That's bat speed, not a bloop streak.
P 1 HR — 2-for-3, 5 TB, 1 BB
HEAT CHECKMIA @ NYM
Francisco Lindor: 1.042 OPS in Last 15 Days
Lindor's last 15 days, a 1.042 OPS, sit well clear of his .753 season line. Nine homers on the year, and tonight's total-bases number is 1.5 for a hitter who's currently locked in.
P 1-for-4, 2 TB
TWO STARTSBoston Red Sox — week of 7/27
Jake Bennett
Bennett's Athletics turn from Tuesday is banked; the Dodgers today closes it out. A 3.07 xERA keeps him inside PLAN_AROUND for both starts, not just the one that's already over. Stay in for today's finale.
HR THREATPhillies @ Orioles
Kyle Schwarber
Gary's Take Bradish throws his four-seamer less than anything else in his mix, and there's a reason for that — hitters are batting .301 against it, the softest number on his entire arsenal. Schwarber has built a career on exactly that mistake: .575 slugging against four-seamers, and against right-handers as a group he's sitting on 21 home runs in 239 at-bats this season, right around one every eleven trips.
P 0 HR — 0-for-2, 0 TB, 1 BB
HR THREATRoyals @ Rockies
Salvador Perez
Gary's Take Perez has left the yard five times in his last fifteen games and the recent contact backs the surge up — barrels, not bloops. The lefty he's facing tonight has been a genuine problem against right-handed power all season, a .954 OPS allowed with the home runs piling up specifically against that side of the plate.
P 0 HR — 1-for-4, 2 TB
HR THREATGiants @ Padres
Manny Machado
Gary's Take Machado's already got a track record against Roupp — four hits in ten career at-bats, one of them gone — and his current swing backs it up. Sixteen hits in his last fifty-six at-bats with four home runs mixed in, and the contact quality is the best anywhere on this board: three barrels in his last twenty-two balls in play, whiff rate down under a quarter of his swings.
P 0 HR — 0-for-4, 0 TB
BULLPENCHW @ TB
Chicago White Sox pen: 16 relief IP over their last 3 games
Richards has worked both of the last two days and Domínguez has gone twice in three — that's a bullpen with very little left to give if the starter doesn't work deep. Schweitzer, Newcomb, and Hudson are the ones who've actually had time to recover.
TWO STARTSCincinnati Reds — week of 7/27
Chase Burns
Burns went Tuesday against the Guardians at home, and the Pirates today is the back half — also at home. A 3.19 xERA plus two home starts in one week is the whole case. Stay in — two home starts, both worth using.
TWO STARTSLos Angeles Angels — week of 7/27
Walbert Ureña
Ureña's Astros start came Monday at home, and the Brewers today finishes it, also at home. A 3.26 xERA is the shakiest number in this PLAN_AROUND group, but it's still the group he's graded into. Stay in for today's finale.
HEAT CHECKKC @ COL
Salvador Perez: .907 OPS in Last 15 Days
Perez is hitting .907 over his last 15 days, a big jump from his .638 season mark. Sixteen homers this year, and he walks into a hot night at Coors with a 1.5 total-bases line on the board.
P 1-for-4, 2 TB
PLATOON EDGEARI @ CLE
Travis Bazzana (bats L) hits 4th against Merrill Kelly (RHP)
Over 203 AB vs. Right, Travis Bazzana owns a .828 OPS versus .538 in 97 AB the other way. He sees RHP Merrill Kelly tonight hitting 4th, where the platoon side lines up his way.
P 1-for-2, 1 TB, 2 BB
TWO STARTSNew York Yankees — week of 7/27
Gerrit Cole
Cole's White Sox start from Tuesday is done; the Cubs today is what's left, on the road. A 3.28 xERA is the lowest mark in this PLAN_AROUND tier, but the tier covers the whole week, both starts. Stay in for today's finale.
SITUATIONALPIT @ CIN
PIT's pen has logged 14.7 innings across its last 3 games
3 games, 14.7 innings out of the pen — Hunter Barco (3) and Antwone Kelly (3) carried the load. CIN's pen has thrown 10 over the same span.
P flagged side lost 2-10
SITUATIONALTEX @ HOU
TEX's pen has logged 14.7 innings across its last 3 games
3 games, 14.7 innings out of the pen — Marco Gonzales (3) and Peyton Gray (3) carried the load. HOU's pen has thrown 11 over the same span.
P flagged side lost 3-7
HEAT CHECKCHW @ TB
Nick Fortes: 1.172 OPS in Last 15 Days
The last 15 days sample runs 29 PA: a 1.172 OPS versus .699 for the season, 0.473 above his norm. His total-bases line tonight: 0.5.
P 1-for-3, 2 TB, 1 BB
STREAKARI @ CLE
CLE have lost 4 straight
Cleveland's lost four straight and been outscored by 13 over that stretch, 2-5 in their last seven. That's a team underperforming right now, not just running into good pitching.
P team won 0-5
HEAT CHECKPIT @ CIN
Tyler Stephenson: 1.183 OPS in Last 15 Days
The last 15 days sample runs 31 PA: a 1.183 OPS versus .739 for the season, 0.444 above his norm. He has 8 home runs on the season. His total-bases line tonight: 0.5.
P 2-for-4, 6 TB, 1 BB
SITUATIONALBOS @ LAD
14.7 bullpen innings in 3 games for LAD
Relievers have absorbed 14.7 innings over the last 3 games (Cole Irvin (6) and Tanner Scott (2) the heaviest). BOS's pen has thrown 11.3 over the same span.
P flagged side lost 8-4
TWO STARTSDetroit Tigers — week of 7/27
Keider Montero
Montero's Orioles start Monday came at home; today is the road trip to the Athletics. A 3.48 xERA and a STREAM_BOTH tag mean neither outing was ever a lock — a name you check before you trust, not one you pencil in blind. Streamer only — check today's matchup before trusting him again.
HR THREATYankees @ Cubs
Ben Rice
Gary's Take Rea leans on his four-seamer more than anything else he throws, and it's the pitch that's given him the most trouble all year — hitters are hitting .314 against it and doing real damage, not just poking singles through. That's the pitch Rice sees more than any other, and it happens to be the one he punishes hardest himself, slugging well over .950 against four-seamers this season.
P 0 HR — 0-for-4, 0 TB
SITUATIONALDET @ OAK
DET's pen has logged 14.3 innings across its last 3 games
3 games, 14.3 innings out of the pen — Ty Madden (5) and Drew Sommers (3) carried the load. OAK's pen has thrown 13.7 over the same span.
P flagged side won 11-0
REGRESSIONARI @ CLE
Merrill Kelly: 4.86 ERA vs 7.17 xERA
This is one of the scarier gaps on the board — a 45% hard-hit rate, under six strikeouts a nine, and results running more than two runs better than the process deserves. He's also been lights out his last three starts, so it's a pitcher riding a heater the underlying numbers say shouldn't last.
P 5 IP, 5 ER, 5 K
HR THREATTigers @ Athletics
Gleyber Torres
Gary's Take Torres has gone deep twice in his last week even while his average has cooled, which tells me the swing's still on time even when the results haven't all dropped in. He gets a real look from the right side tonight — right-handed hitters have out-slugged lefties against Jump this season, and he's already allowed five home runs to right-handed bats compared to two against lefties.
P 0 HR — 1-for-2, 1 TB, 4 BB
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 6.5.
P final total 2 vs 6.5 (over lean)
STARTER FORMARI @ CLE
Merrill Kelly: 1.72 ERA over his last 3 starts
Three earned runs and a dozen strikeouts across his last three starts is as good a stretch as he's had all year, whatever the season-long numbers say about it. Cleveland's the real test of whether it's earned or borrowed time.
P 5 IP, 5 ER, 5 K
COOLING OFFARI @ CLE
Brayan Rocchio: .485 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Merrill Kelly
Brayan Rocchio's .485 OPS over the last 15 days (61 PA) trails his .709 season mark, down 0.224. Tonight he draws RHP Merrill Kelly — his stronger side: a .732 OPS vs RHP across 263 AB.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
HR THREATDiamondbacks @ Guardians
Kyle Manzardo
Gary's Take Manzardo's carrying two home runs and an OPS over 1.200 through his last week, and the contact backs it up — three barreled balls in his last ten balls in play, a real jump in the quality of contact he's making. He's a left-handed bat facing a right-hander with a specific problem with lefty power — Kelly's given up a home run to a left-handed hitter at a rate of roughly one every seventeen at-bats this season, notably higher than what he allows to righties.
P 0 HR — 1-for-4, 1 TB
COOLING OFFPHI @ BAL
Taylor Ward: .532 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Zack Wheeler
Taylor Ward's .532 OPS over the last 15 days (48 PA) trails his .729 season mark, down 0.197. Tonight he draws RHP Zack Wheeler — his weaker side: a .692 OPS vs RHP across 301 AB.
P 1-for-2, 1 TB
BULLPENPIT @ CIN
Pittsburgh Pirates pen: 14.7 relief IP over their last 3 games
Barco needed 72 pitches to get three innings, and Soto and Montgomery have both already gone twice in three days — Murdock is really the only fresh arm sitting there if Pittsburgh needs length. Against a Reds team that's 7-1 when Burns takes the mound, that's not the pen you want to lean on.
BALLPARKNYY @ CHC
Colin Rea owns a 3.33 ERA at Wrigley Field — 5.93 everywhere else
A two-and-a-half-run gap between his home and road ERA over a real sample, 10 games worth at Wrigley, isn't noise. Hitters batting 55 points lower there too — home field matters more for him than for most.
P 6 IP, 2 ER, 7 K
BULLPENMIL @ LAA
Los Angeles Angels pen: 15.7 relief IP over their last 3 games
Only Yates has pitched more than once in the last three days — Kerry's the one who went long, four innings and 55 pitches, and probably needs the night off, but the rest of that pen is sitting on a single light outing. There's real rest in that bullpen even if the record doesn't show it.
FANTASY PICKUPSARI @ CLE
Jose Ramirez
Pickup vs Merrill Kelly (7.13 xERA) — .723 OPS, bats 2nd.
FANTASY PICKUPSARI @ CLE
Travis Bazzana
Pickup vs Merrill Kelly (7.13 xERA) — .734 OPS, bats 4th.
PARK WEATHERKC @ COL
100° at Coors Field — the ball will carry tonight
A hundred degrees at Coors is about as much carry as the ball gets all year. The total is already up at 11.5, and the heat isn't going to be what brings the scoring down.
P final total 9 vs 11.5 (over lean)
TOMORROWSTL @ NYY
Michael McGreevy: 3.57 ERA vs 5.66 xERA
A 3.57 ERA looks sharp, but a 5.66 expected ERA underneath it tells a different story — a 42.6% hard-hit rate and a .252 average allowed against contact that should be giving up .290 is a real gap. Facing the Yankees, I'd treat that shiny ERA with some skepticism.
SITUATIONALMIL @ LAA
LAA's pen has logged 12.7 innings across its last 3 games
3 games, 12.7 innings out of the pen — Jose Fermin (3.3) and Brent Suter (2.3) carried the load. MIL's pen has thrown 11.3 over the same span.
P flagged side won 0-3
FANTASY PICKUPSARI @ CLE
Brayan Rocchio
Pickup vs Merrill Kelly (7.13 xERA) — .709 OPS, bats 6th.
COOLING OFFSTL @ TOR
Ivan Herrera: .596 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Max Scherzer
Ivan Herrera's .596 OPS over the last 15 days (60 PA) trails his .740 season mark, down 0.144. Tonight he draws RHP Max Scherzer — his weaker side: a .709 OPS vs RHP across 292 AB.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
CUT LISTCHC tonight
Colin Rea
Starts tonight for CHC — 5.52 xERA behind a 4.67 ERA — the ERA is flattering him.
PLATOON EDGEPHI @ BAL
Pete Alonso (bats R) draws Zack Wheeler (RHP), batting 2nd
Pete Alonso carries a .855 OPS vs. Right (290 AB) against .707 the other way (127 AB), and faces RHP Zack Wheeler from the 2nd spot — a split his blended season line may not reflect.
P 1-for-2, 1 TB
COOLING OFFPIT @ CIN
JJ Bleday: .590 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Mitch Keller
JJ Bleday's .590 OPS over the last 15 days (49 PA) trails his .803 season mark, down 0.213. Tonight he draws RHP Mitch Keller — his stronger side: a .830 OPS vs RHP across 215 AB.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB, 2 BB
REGRESSIONKC @ COL
Kyle Freeland: 7.34 ERA vs 5.63 xERA
Part of this is bad luck — the average allowed is running ahead of what the contact quality predicts — but a 43.7% hard-hit rate says hitters are legitimately squaring him up too. Some correction back toward the mid-5s is fair, just not a clean bounce-back to sharp.
P 9 IP, 1 ER, 8 K
COOLING OFFARI @ CLE
Tim Tawa: .413 OPS in L15 — draws RHP Gavin Williams
Tim Tawa's .413 OPS over the last 15 days (47 PA) trails his .624 season mark, down 0.211. Tonight he draws RHP Gavin Williams — his stronger side: a .688 OPS vs RHP across 99 AB.
P 1-for-4, 1 TB
CUT LISTTOR tonight
Max Scherzer
Starts tonight for TOR — 6.16 xERA behind a 9.49 ERA.
FANTASY PICKUPSSTL @ TOR
Alec Burleson
Pickup vs Max Scherzer (6.12 xERA) — .807 OPS, bats 3rd.
HEAT CHECKCHW @ TB
Chandler Simpson: .857 OPS in Last 15 Days
Over the last 15 days (46 PA) he is at a .857 OPS, up 0.183 on his .674 season mark. His total-bases line tonight: 1.5.
P 3-for-3, 3 TB
CUT LISTKC tonight
Seth Lugo
Starts tonight for KC — 5.38 xERA behind a 4.22 ERA — the ERA is flattering him.
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.
REGRESSIONKC @ COL
Mickey Moniak: .278 AVG vs .227 xBA
Moniak is hitting .278 against a .227 expected average across 273 plate appearances, and his wOBA is running well ahead of his xwOBA too. The results have outpaced the contact quality by a wide margin this year.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB, 1 BB
RETURN WATCHARI — return listed 8/2
Jordan Lawlar
Listed back 8/2 (10-Day-IL, hamstring) — 0.856 OPS this season.
BULLPENTEX @ HOU
Texas Rangers pen: 14.7 relief IP over their last 3 games
Nine different relievers over three games is a bullpen scrambling, not managing comfortably. Gray's already back for a second look, and the two who logged real innings needed heavy pitch counts to get through them — not a lot of good options left if this one goes long.
TOMORROWTOR @ HOU
Shane Bieber: 5.75 ERA vs 7.54 xERA
A 5.75 ERA is already ugly, and a 7.54 expected ERA says the actual pitching has been worse than even that — a 45.5% hard-hit rate is one of the higher marks on the board. Facing Houston tomorrow, the ugly ERA isn't the misleading part; if anything it's flattering him.
REGRESSIONPIT @ CIN
Esmerlyn Valdez: .268 AVG vs .222 xBA
Valdez is hitting .268 against a .222 expected average, and the wOBA-to-xwOBA gap runs the same direction. Across 168 plate appearances, the results have stayed ahead of the process all season.
P 0-for-3, 0 TB, 1 BB
REGRESSIONPIT @ CIN
Jake Mangum: .306 AVG vs .258 xBA
Mangum's .306 average sits well above his .258 expected mark over 314 plate appearances, and his wOBA tells the same story against his xwOBA. He's gotten more out of his contact than the underlying numbers say he should.
P 0-for-2, 0 TB, 1 BB
SITUATIONALPHI @ BAL
BAL's bullpen has covered 12 innings over the last 3 games
That is 12 relief innings in 3 games, led by Tyler Wells (3) and Yennier Cano (2). PHI's pen has thrown 6.7 over the same span.
P flagged side lost 8-0
RETURN WATCHTEX — return listed 8/2
Robert Garcia
Listed back 8/2 (60-Day-IL, shoulder) — 3.38 ERA this season.
REGRESSIONKC @ COL
TJ Rumfield: .297 AVG vs .254 xBA
Rumfield's .297 average is well clear of his .254 expected mark across 437 plate appearances, a big enough sample that it's not noise. His wOBA outpacing his xwOBA says the same thing a different way.
P 1-for-4, 2 TB
BALLPARKKC @ COL
Kyle Freeland owns a 6.33 ERA at Coors Field — 8.29 everywhere else
Coors is actually the more forgiving park for him, which says plenty about how bad the road version has been — 8.29 elsewhere is ugly. Even the 'good' version of him this year still has hitters batting .303 at home.
P 9 IP, 1 ER, 8 K
PLATOON EDGEPIT @ CIN
Tyler Stephenson (bats R) gets a RHP from the 4th spot
Tyler Stephenson's vs. Right line (.766 OPS, 209 AB) sits well above his .622 mark the other way (53 AB). Tonight's starter Mitch Keller throws RHP, the hand he hits best.
P 2-for-4, 6 TB, 1 BB
REGRESSIONDET @ OAK
Donovan Walton: .298 AVG vs .254 xBA
Walton's hitting .298 against a .254 expected average, production running ahead of what the underlying contact says it should be. It's a smaller sample at 130 plate appearances, so I wouldn't read too much into it yet.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
REGRESSIONSTL @ TOR
Ernie Clement: .292 AVG vs .252 xBA
Clement is hitting .292 against a .252 expected average over 438 plate appearances, with wOBA running ahead of xwOBA to match. That's a full season of outperforming his contact quality, not a short hot streak.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
HEAT CHECKARI @ CLE
Petey Halpin: .723 OPS in Last 15 Days
Over the last 15 days (44 PA) he is at a .723 OPS, up 0.165 on his .558 season mark. His total-bases line tonight: 0.5.
P 1-for-3, 1 TB
TOMORROWTOR @ HOU
Cristian Javier: 7.17 ERA vs 5.59 xERA
Javier's 7.17 ERA is bad even against his own 5.59 expected mark, and the underlying numbers — a 39.7% hard-hit rate, 11.1% barrel rate — say a lot of this is deserved, not misfortune. Some of the gap should close facing Toronto tomorrow, but I wouldn't expect a clean outing.
STARTER FORMKC @ COL
Seth Lugo: 2.37 ERA over his last 3 starts
A 1.00 WHIP and ten strikeouts across his last three says this stretch is legit, not just scattered results — and unlike a lot of hot streaks, his actual contact numbers back it up too. Lines are still pricing him off the 4.22 season number.
P 5 IP, 5 ER, 3 K
RETURN WATCHSEA — return listed 8/3
Matt Brash
Listed back 8/3 (15-Day-IL, lat) — 0.54 ERA this season.
REGRESSIONSF @ SD
Michael King: 3.38 ERA vs 4.58 xERA
Low hard-hit rate, low barrel rate, strong strikeout numbers — this isn't a pitcher living on luck, the process actually backs up the results. San Francisco's catching a genuinely effective version of him tonight, not a correction waiting to happen.
CUT LISTSD tonight
Jake Cronenworth
Still hitting 2th for SD — 0.597 OPS, 0.215 AVG from the 2-hole.
RETURN WATCHSEA — return listed 8/4
Brendan Donovan
Listed back 8/4 (10-Day-IL, groin) — 0.839 OPS this season.
STARTER FORMWSH @ ATL
Cade Cavalli: 2.00 ERA over his last 3 starts
Four earned runs across his last 18 innings is a real jump from the 3.55 he's carried all season. Whatever's clicked for him, he's picked a tough time to be at his best — right into a team that's won five straight.
P 6 IP, 2 ER, 3 K
BATTER VS ARMSF @ SD
Manny Machado vs Landen Roupp: .400
Machado is 4-for-10 with a walk against Roupp for his career, good for a 1.155 OPS, and he's hot on top of it at .897 over his last 15 days. Favorable history walking into a favorable stretch.
P 0-for-4, 0 TB
BATTER VS ARMCHW @ TB
Andrew Benintendi vs Griffin Jax: .385
Benintendi's 5-for-13 with a homer off Jax for his career, and he's not walking in cold either — a .744 OPS over his last 15 games. History and current form are lined up in the same direction tonight.
P 1-for-4, 4 TB
STARTER FORMMIL @ LAA
Walbert Urena: 1.13 ERA over his last 3 starts
Two earned runs and 13 strikeouts across his last three starts is a step up even from his strong 2.70 season number. Not an easy pitcher to be facing in the middle of a five-game skid.
P 6 IP, 0 ER, 7 K
REGRESSIONBOS @ LAD
Emmet Sheehan: 4.95 ERA vs 3.77 xERA
Double-digit strikeouts per nine and a tidy WHIP with only ordinary hard-contact numbers against him — the 4.95 is the outlier here, not the process behind it. Boston's catching a pitcher better than his own team's 1-7 record behind him suggests.
P 2.2 IP, 5 ER, 4 K
REGRESSIONKC @ COL
Seth Lugo: 4.22 ERA vs 5.38 xERA
Most ERA-beats-expected gaps come from balls finding holes that shouldn't — his actual average allowed is almost identical to what's expected, so that's not what's happening here. The hard contact against him is real, but a 7 K/9 keeps it from snowballing, which is a more sustainable formula than the raw gap makes it look.
P 5 IP, 5 ER, 3 K
STARTER FORMDET @ OAK
Gage Jump: 5.65 ERA over his last 3 starts
A 1.74 WHIP over his last three starts means a lot of traffic, and 5.65 is the real version of him lately, not the 4.00 his season line still shows. Detroit's already had his number this year too.
P 3.2 IP, 6 ER, 5 K
STARTER FORMPIT @ CIN
Mitch Keller: 3.38 ERA over his last 3 starts
Thirteen strikeouts and a 3.38 ERA over his last three is a solid little run, a run and a half better than his season number. He'll need it — Cincinnati's 7-1 this year on the nights Burns takes the ball, and Burns has been nails early too.
P 2 IP, 7 ER, 2 K
TOMORROWWSH @ PHI
Aaron Nola: 5.61 ERA vs 4.34 xERA
Nola's 5.61 ERA sits above his 4.34 expected mark, and a .279 average allowed against a .249 his contact quality supports explains a good chunk of that. The hard-hit numbers aren't extreme, so I'd treat him as closer to a low-4 ERA pitcher than the mid-5 he's currently running, facing Washington tomorrow.
CUT LISTSD tonight
Luis Rengifo
Still hitting 1th for SD — 0.629 OPS, 0.236 AVG from the 1-hole.
CLOSER WATCHARI @ CLE
Cade Smith
Cade Smith owns the ninth for the Guardians — 30 saves this season (next closest: Matt Festa with 1).
HEAT CHECKPHI @ BAL
Jackson Holliday: .883 OPS in Last 15 Days
The last 15 days sample runs 40 PA: a .883 OPS versus .751 for the season, 0.132 above his norm. His total-bases line tonight: 0.5.
P 0-for-2, 0 TB
TOMORROWSD @ ARI
Michael King: 3.38 ERA vs 4.58 xERA
King's 3.38 ERA is legitimate — the hard-hit and barrel numbers back up real quality — but a .215 average allowed against .245 deserved shows some of the shine is better luck rather than pure dominance. Still a good outing to expect against Arizona tomorrow, just maybe not as untouchable as the ERA alone suggests.
CUT LISTSEA tonight
Cal Raleigh
Still hitting 6th for SEA — 0.569 OPS, 0.162 AVG from the 6-hole.
STARTER FORMPHI @ BAL
Zack Wheeler: 3.94 ERA over his last 3 starts
Wheeler's last three starts carry a 3.94 ERA, well off his outstanding 2.53 season mark, though the WHIP has stayed tight at 1.00. Still getting outs even in a rougher patch, worth knowing before assuming the shiny season number is what shows up tonight.
P 2 IP, 0 ER, 3 K
CUT LISTKC tonight
Salvador Perez
Still hitting 4th for KC — 0.638 OPS, 0.215 AVG from the 4-hole.
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).
CLOSER WATCHSTL @ TOR
Louis Varland
Louis Varland owns the ninth for the Blue Jays — 24 saves this season (next closest: Jeff Hoffman with 5).
CLOSER WATCHWSH @ ATL
Raisel Iglesias
Raisel Iglesias owns the ninth for the Braves — 23 saves this season (next closest: Robert Suarez with 4).
CLOSER WATCHPHI @ BAL
Jhoan Duran
Jhoan Duran owns the ninth for the Phillies — 24 saves this season (next closest: Brad Keller with 3).
RUNNING GAMESF @ SD
Green light: San Diego Padres run, and Drew Cavanaugh has caught just 14%
Drew Cavanaugh is catching tonight at 14% on the season (3-for-22 throwing), and San Diego Padres attempt 1.3 steals a game. The track meet is on.
P San Diego Padres stole 2 bases
CUT LISTPHI tonight
Alec Bohm
Still hitting 4th for PHI — 0.644 OPS, 0.223 AVG from the 4-hole.
BALLPARKARI @ CLE
Gavin Williams's ERA drops to 3.09 at Progressive Field
A run and a quarter better at home over 11 starts worth of sample, and hitters batting 21 points lower off him there — that's real enough to matter. He's also catching Kelly on a heater, so this could turn into a legitimate pitcher's duel.
P 5.2 IP, 0 ER, 10 K
RETURN WATCHCOL — return listed 8/6
Blas Castano
Listed back 8/6 (15-Day-IL, pectoral) — 3.92 ERA this season.
RUNNING GAMEWSH @ ATL
Green light: Washington Nationals run, and Drake Baldwin has caught just 15%
Baldwin's caught just 6 of 39 runners this year, and Washington already tries it 1.3 times a game. If the Nats get on, they're running.
P Washington Nationals stole 2 bases
FANTASY PICKUPSTEX @ HOU
Peter Lambert
Streamer vs TEX — 3.43 xERA · 8.7 K/9 · 1.15 WHIP.
FIRST INNINGMIA @ NYM
NRFI watch: quiet first innings on both sides of MIA @ NYM
Both sides have been quiet early, three first-inning runs apiece across their last ten games, and Alcantara's held hitters to .278 in first innings this year. The number sitting basically at a coinflip feels about right for two offenses that take a while to get going.
P 1st inning: 0-0 (0 runs)
RUNNING GAMEMIL @ LAA
Milwaukee Brewers like to run — Tyler Heineman (33% caught) is the wrong catcher to test
Milwaukee runs, 1.3 attempts a game, and Heineman's caught just 33% of runners this year. That's about as clear a green light as you'll find — I'd expect them to test him early.
P Milwaukee Brewers stole 0 bases
REGRESSIONMIA @ NYM
New York Mets are 10-20 in one-run games (.333 win%)
A .333 win rate in one-run games is more variance than a real read on this team — records like that rarely hold at either extreme. If the Mets are being priced off how those close ones broke, there might be more to them than the record shows.
RUNNING GAMEMIN @ SEA
Green light: Seattle Mariners run, and Ryan Jeffers has caught just 12%
Seattle's run all year — 82 steals on the season — and Minnesota's throwing a catcher who's caught just 5 of 41 attempts. That's not a close call; I'd expect the Mariners testing Jeffers early and often tonight.
P Seattle Mariners stole 0 bases
CUT LISTNYM tonight
Bo Bichette
Still hitting 3th for NYM — 0.666 OPS, 0.256 AVG from the 3-hole.
CUT LISTCLE tonight
Steven Kwan
Still hitting 1th for CLE — 0.672 OPS, 0.256 AVG from the 1-hole.
TOMORROWTB @ COL
Ian Seymour: 4.37 ERA vs 3.36 xERA
Seymour's ERA sits a run above his xERA, but nothing underneath it — not the average against, not the hard-contact or barrel numbers — backs up runs that severe. Reads more like bad timing than bad stuff. Tomorrow's start at Colorado should land closer to that 3.36 than the 4.37.
RETURN WATCHLAD — return listed 8/5
Gavin Stone
Listed back 8/5 (60-Day-IL, shoulder).
RETURN WATCHPIT — return listed 8/7
Oneil Cruz
Listed back 8/7 (60-Day-IL, hand) — 0.822 OPS this season.
RETURN WATCHNYM — return listed 8/7
Clay Holmes
Listed back 8/7 (60-Day-IL, lower leg) — 2.39 ERA this season.
FANTASY PICKUPSSF @ SD
Landen Roupp
Streamer vs SD — 3.48 xERA · 9 K/9 · 1.26 WHIP.
REGRESSIONPHI @ BAL
Philadelphia Phillies are 19-10 in one-run games (.655 win%)
The flip side of the coin — a .655 win rate in one-run games is just as unsustainable as a bad one, it just feels better while it lasts. Philadelphia's overall record is probably flattering them some, and Baltimore catches them on the road tonight.
TOMORROWLAD @ CHC
Matthew Boyd: 3.41 ERA vs 4.31 xERA
Boyd's been a little better than his peripherals — nine tenths of a run of cushion — but the .240 he's allowed against a .253 expected mark is a small gap, and his contact numbers are middle-of-the-pack. This isn't a pitcher living on fumes, just one running slightly hot. Against the Dodgers tomorrow I'd bump my runs expectation up a touch from what the ERA shows, not overhaul it.
TOMORROWTB @ COL
Michael Lorenzen: 6.54 ERA vs 5.63 xERA
Lorenzen's the one I'd actually stay off in this group — a 46.2% hard-hit rate, the worst mark here, and an expected ERA of 5.63 that's already ugly before the extra bad luck bumps his actual mark to 6.54. Even giving him back the .331-vs-.294 gap on balls in play, he's still a mid-5s pitcher getting hit hard on the regular. Nothing about facing Tampa Bay tomorrow says this turns around.
FANTASY PICKUPSBOS @ LAD
Jake Bennett
Streamer vs LAD — 3.07 xERA · 6.3 K/9 · 0.97 WHIP.
TOMORROWSTL @ NYY
Cam Schlittler: 2.04 ERA vs 2.89 xERA
Projected to start tomorrow vs STL. A 2.04 ERA against a 2.89 expected ERA (0.85 run gap) — running hot, due to regress. Opponents hit .196 vs .212 expected.
FANTASY PICKUPSSF @ SD
Kyle Hart
Streamer vs SF — 3.51 xERA · 8 K/9 · 1.11 WHIP.
RUNNING GAMEPIT @ CIN
Green light: Cincinnati Reds run, and Endy Rodriguez has caught just 16%
Rodriguez has thrown out just 5 of 32 basestealers, and Cincinnati already runs — 0.7 stolen bases a game, 81 on the year. That's about as green as a light gets.
P Cincinnati Reds stole 0 bases
RUNNING GAMEKC @ COL
Green light: Kansas City Royals run, and Brett Sullivan has caught just 16%
Sullivan's caught just 6 of 38 this season, and Kansas City's running at a 0.8-steals-a-game pace — 87 already this year. Anybody who reaches tonight should be moving.
P Kansas City Royals stole 0 bases
CUT LISTSTL tonight
Masyn Winn
Still hitting 5th for STL — 0.645 OPS, 0.243 AVG from the 5-hole.
BULLPENBOS @ LAD
Los Angeles Dodgers pen: 12.7 relief IP over their last 3 games
The Dodgers' pen is as fresh as it gets — 12 and two-thirds innings across the last three games, with every reliever making just one appearance in that stretch. The one arm to watch is Cole Irvin, whose outing was six innings on 102 pitches, a starter's workload, so he's the one who needs time even though it was a single appearance. Díaz, Scott, Klein, Vesia and Dreyer were all in and out on light counts, so outside of Irvin, this pen is fully loaded against Boston tonight.
FANTASY PICKUPSDET @ OAK
Keider Montero
Streamer vs OAK — 3.48 xERA · 6.4 K/9 · 1.02 WHIP.
CUT LISTTB tonight
Chandler Simpson
Still hitting 5th for TB — 0.674 OPS, 0.290 AVG from the 5-hole.
FIRST INNINGWSH @ ATL
WSH have gone quiet in the 1st: runs in 1 of their last 10
One first-inning run in their last ten games is about as cold a start as a lineup gets, and it lines up against a pitcher who's been almost as stingy early — a 1.96 ERA and .235 average against in the first inning this year. Early runs feel like a stretch in this one.
P flagged team scored 0 in the 1st
FIRST INNINGCHW @ TB
TB have gone quiet in the 1st: runs in 1 of their last 10
Just one first-inning run in ten games for Tampa Bay, and neither starter tonight profiles as an easy out early — Jax has held hitters to .217 in the first, Kay a bit more hittable at .269 but still solid. Early scoring looks like the long shot here.
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
Burns has been about as tough as it gets in the first inning this year, a .159 average against, and Pittsburgh's lineup has scored in the first just once in their last ten games. Keller's been sharp early too, so this might not open with much action at all.
P flagged team scored 0 in the 1st
FIRST INNINGKC @ COL
KC have gone quiet in the 1st: runs in 1 of their last 10
Kansas City's been ice cold in the first inning lately, but neither starter tonight has actually protected the first well this season — Freeland's sitting on a 9.47 ERA in first innings, Lugo not far behind at 5.73. That's a cold lineup running into two pitchers who've both leaked runs early.
P flagged team scored 0 in the 1st
FIRST INNINGNYY @ CHC
NYY have gone quiet in the 1st: runs in 1 of their last 10
Cole and Rea have both been excellent in the first inning this year, and the Yankees have scored in the first just once in their last ten games. Slow starts on both sides feels like the way to read the opening frame.
P flagged team scored 0 in the 1st
CUT LISTARI tonight
Max Kepler
Still hitting 5th for ARI — 0.680 OPS, 0.238 AVG from the 5-hole.

Graded results

Games

L
Diamondbacks ML +144
MLB · 0-5
L
Twins ML +122
MLB · 6-7
L
Nationals ML +101
MLB · 2-4
W
Astros ML -142
MLB · 3-7
W
Red Sox ML +153
MLB · 8-4
W
Cardinals ML +113
MLB · 5-1
L
Tampa Bay Rays ML -150
MLB · 9-1
W
Marlins ML -120
MLB · 2-0
L
Pittsburgh Pirates ML +120
MLB · 2-10
W
Angels +1.5 +113
MLB · 0-3
W
Phillies ML -145
MLB · 8-0
W
Padres ML -131
MLB · 4-5
W
Detroit Tigers ML -126
MLB · 11-0
L
Cubs ML +106
MLB · 2-1
L
Royals ML +106
MLB · 1-8

Props

L
Alec Bohm · over
Phillies @ Orioles · Actual 0
L
Alec Burleson · over
Cardinals @ Blue Jays · Actual 1
L
Anthony Kay · over
White Sox @ Rays · Actual 0
L
Brandon Lowe · over
Pirates @ Reds · Actual 0
L
Brandon Lowe · over
Pirates @ Reds · Actual 0
W
Bryce Harper · over
Phillies @ Orioles · Actual 1
W
Cade Cavalli · over
Nationals @ Braves · Actual 18
W
Ceddanne Rafaela · over
Red Sox @ Dodgers · Actual 1
L
CJ Abrams · over
Nationals @ Braves · Actual 0
L
Colin Rea · over
Yankees @ Cubs · Actual 3
L
Dominic Canzone · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 0
W
Francisco Lindor · over
Marlins @ Mets · Actual 2
W
Freddie Freeman · over
Red Sox @ Dodgers · Actual 1
L
Gage Jump · over
Tigers @ Athletics · Actual 5
W
Gavin Williams · over
Diamondbacks @ Guardians · Actual 10
L
George Kirby · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 5
W
George Springer · over
Cardinals @ Blue Jays · Actual 3
L
Gerrit Cole · over
Yankees @ Cubs · Actual 5
L
Gleyber Torres · over
Tigers @ Athletics · Actual 0
L
Griffin Conine · over
Marlins @ Mets · Actual 0
W
Hao-Yu Lee · over
Tigers @ Athletics · Actual 2
W
Jackson Merrill · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 1
W
Jacob Misiorowski · over
Brewers @ Angels · Actual 10
L
Jake Bauers · over
Brewers @ Angels · Actual 1
W
Jake Bennett · over
Red Sox @ Dodgers · Actual 17
W
Jeremy Pena · over
Rangers @ Astros · Actual 1
L
Kody Clemens · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 0
L
Kyle Freeland · over
Royals @ Rockies · Actual 1
L
Kyle Manzardo · over
Diamondbacks @ Guardians · Actual 0
L
Kyle Schwarber · over
Phillies @ Orioles · Actual 0
L
Liam Hicks · over
Marlins @ Mets · Actual 1
L
Manny Machado · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 0
L
Manny Machado · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 0
W
Munetaka Murakami · over
White Sox @ Rays · Actual 2
L
Nick Gonzales · over
Pirates @ Reds · Actual 0
L
Pete Alonso · over
Phillies @ Orioles · Actual 0
L
Peter Lambert · over
Rangers @ Astros · Actual 17
L
Randy Arozarena · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 0
W
Ryan Jeffers · over
Twins @ Mariners · Actual 1
W
Sal Stewart · over
Pirates @ Reds · Actual 1
L
Salvador Perez · over
Royals @ Rockies · Actual 0
W
Seth Lugo · over
Royals @ Rockies · Actual 5
L
Steven Kwan · over
Diamondbacks @ Guardians · Actual 1
L
Teoscar Hernandez · over
Red Sox @ Dodgers · Actual 0
L
Ty France · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 0
W
Ty France · over
Giants @ Padres · Actual 4
L
Willson Contreras · over
Red Sox @ Dodgers · Actual 0
W
Yordan Alvarez · over
Rangers @ Astros · Actual 7
L
Zack Wheeler · over
Phillies @ Orioles · Actual 3