Sports picks for Wednesday, September 9, 2026

Culpepper has been the steadiest contact bat in this Twins lineup since he came up, hitting .296 with a hit in 11 of his last 15 games, and he's slotted fifth today where four trips to the plate are the norm. Yes, Keider Montero has been death on right-handed hitters this season, but he's coming off the roughest start of his year, said afterward the changeup was slipping out of his hand, and he's a pitch-to-contact arm whose contact hasn't been weak lately. Culpepper doesn't need to beat him more than once. Two or three looks at Montero plus at least one against the Detroit pen is plenty of runway for a hitter who has been spraying singles since he arrived. He took an 0-for last night, and I'd rather buy the bounce than chase a hot one. At -162 I'm paying for a roughly 62 percent proposition on a guy who has cleared this bar closer to 70 percent of the time. I'll take that.

This is a lineup bet as much as a pitcher bet. Detroit is running out a day-game nine with Torres, Torkelson, McKinstry and Valencia all on the bench, which leaves Callahan, Clark, Malgeri and Peck covering the bottom third, and the middle of the order has been cold for weeks. McGonigle, Lee, Keith and Dingler are all hitting under .160 over their last fifteen games. Riley Greene is the one bat that scares me, and he's one bat. Matthews' road numbers are ugly and I'm not pretending otherwise, but most of that damage has come on the home run ball, and Comerica is the worst park in the league to try to hit one out of, especially with a stiff crosswind today. Take away the long ball and he's a strike-thrower with a real slider and curveball who has walked two batters in his last three starts combined and went 8 1/3 innings two starts ago. He needs 5 2/3 today. Shelton has shown he'll let him run past 100 pitches when he's efficient, and against a lineup that swings and misses this much, I think he gets there.

I know what the last month looks like. Dingler is hitting under .180 since August and hasn't left the yard in over two weeks, and that's exactly why the number is +600 on a catcher with 26 home runs, 22 of them off right-handed pitching. The price is built on the slump. I'm buying the profile. Zebby Matthews throws his four-seam fastball nearly 40 percent of the time and it's the most hittable pitch in his bag, the kind of pitch that has ended up over the fence six times in his last five starts. Dingler is a fastball hitter who has had success against him in their few meetings, he sat last night, and he gets a fresh day-game look at him two or three times from the fifth spot. Comerica takes some homers away from everyone, and I've priced that in. At six-to-one I'll bet on 500 at-bats of power over three bad weeks.

Guerrero needs three counting stats to beat this number, and the hitter he has been this year does not stack them. He is slugging .354 with 8 home runs in 494 at-bats, so the one swing that gets him to three on its own is rare, and 11 of his last 15 games have landed at 2 or fewer. Three of his four overs in that stretch came on multi-hit days, and one of them was the 9 he posted in an 11-0 rout in Cleveland. On the game side I liked his .783 OPS against left-handers meeting Basso, and I still do. But Basso has not gone past three innings all season, so that buys Guerrero one look, maybe two. The rest of his afternoon is against Oakland's right-handers, where he hits .251 with a .648 OPS and 5 homers in 370 at-bats. A single off Basso and a run scored on Kirk or Okamoto is two. The third has to come from a second hit or an RBI, and with McAdoo and his .294 on-base hitting in front of him, most of the RBI chances run through Bateman alone. The setting helps the under. It is a day game after a night game, 92 degrees, the ninth game of a nine-game road trip. He cleared this Tuesday with two singles and a run, and the price says the market expects a repeat: -130 asks for about 57 percent, and his season profile at 1.9 per game sits closer to 70 for the under. The way this loses is a blowout, the Cleveland game again, with Tur and Johnson soaking up innings for a pen that spent 65 pitches on Roycroft and Hartlieb yesterday. That is real, and it is why this is a moderate play and not a large one.

Kirk has finished at 2 or fewer in 12 of his last 15 games. The three times he cleared this number he had two hits, and he has had exactly three multi-hit games in that stretch, so the over and the multi-hit day have been the same thing. He is a contact hitter, 32 strikeouts in 236 at-bats, who lives at one hit and one other item. His season average is 1.8 per game, and 2.5 means a second hit, a homer, or a hit plus a run plus an RBI in about four trips. He hits left-handers well, .308 with a .798 OPS, and that is one at-bat against Basso, perhaps two if Oakland stretches him to a fourth inning for the first time this season. After that it is Blewett, Medina, Alvarado and the rest of Oakland's right-handed pen, where Kirk is .259 with a .745 OPS. He is the DH today with Valenzuela behind the plate, a day game after a night game in 92-degree heat at the end of a nine-game trip. The risk is plain and I will name it. This park plays small, the wind blows toward right, and he hit one to right-center off Lopez on Monday. A homer gets him to three by itself. The board prices that at +800, and I passed on it for the same reason I am here: it happens roughly one game in seven for him, and the rest of the time he is a singles hitter with a .294 on-base man batting two spots ahead. At -135 the market wants about 57 percent. Twelve of fifteen and a season at 1.8 per game say more than that.

Serven has 5 home runs in 63 at-bats this season, and 4 of his last 15 games included one. He is catching because Langeliers is on the shelf and Heim sat after an 0-for-7 series, and he hits eighth, which matters today. Fisher has never gone past 1.1 innings in eight starts, so Serven's first trip comes in the second or third inning against whoever takes Toronto's bulk innings. Lorenzen is the reported name, and his 7.03 ERA and 1.86 WHIP over 121.2 innings are the softest numbers on either staff for anyone with real work. Serven's power has come against right-handers, 3 homers in 30 at-bats with an .836 OPS. The park is hitter-friendly and it is 92 degrees. What works against him is the wind, which blows toward right and helps the other side of the plate more than his, and his own form: 2-for-11 over the last week and 0-for-3 with a strikeout on Sunday in Seattle. Sixty-three at-bats is not a track record. If Toronto turns to its left-handers, Mantiply, Tiedemann and Fluharty, he is a .636 OPS hitter against them with 2 homers in 33 at-bats. At +820 the ticket pays on about 11 percent. A hitter with his rate in this park getting three swings at Toronto's middle sits closer to 14 or 15, and that gap is the bet. It is a long shot and I am sizing it as one. Nothing about it changes my view that Toronto is the better side today.

Grant McCray needs two of hits, runs and RBIs to beat this number, and almost nothing about his profile or his spot in this lineup gets him there. He is hitting .148 with a .563 OPS in 61 at-bats, .114 against right-handers, and he has cleared 1.5 in two of his last 15 games. He bats eighth in a Giants order that has Rafael Devers on the bench for the day game, so the hitters behind him are Christian Koss at a .594 OPS and Drew Gilbert at 2 for his last 16. The two in front of him, Cavanaugh and Whitcomb, are not stacking runners for him to drive in. Andre Pallante is the other half. He keeps the ball on the ground at a 1.63 ground-out to air-out ratio, has allowed six homers to left-handers in 293 at-bats, and has not given up a homer in his last seven starts. McCray's best skills are the walk and the stolen base, and neither one counts here. A walk, a steal and a run scored still leaves him one short. He needs the hit first, and the marine air in this park is not going to turn one of his fly balls into the three-for-one homer that beats this line. The tail risk is the warm afternoon and the wind blowing toward the 309-foot corner in right, and McCray did homer four days ago in New York. I will live with that. Devers sitting on the bench also means the most likely pinch-hit spot late in a close game is McCray's, which takes a plate appearance away from him. Heavy juice, but the shape of this bet is a .148 hitter needing two things to go right against a groundball pitcher, and I do not think it happens often enough to pay -172 the other way.

This is a bet on the pitch count more than the pitcher, and I am taking it at plus money because the lineup on the other side gives him every chance to work fast. Andre Pallante has cleared 15.5 outs in six of his last eight starts and 14 of his last 17. The two recent misses were a six-run night against Milwaukee in July and his return from the injured list on Friday, when he walked four in the first three innings and was lifted after five innings and 72 pitches with a three-run lead. That last one is the whole risk. He skipped a rehab assignment, so the leash was short, and the elbow that put him on the shelf will keep his manager careful. Here is why I still take it. Second starts off the injured list generally get the next step up, and for a pitcher who sat between 88 and 103 pitches all summer that is a budget around 90. Pallante averages just over five pitches an out because he pitches to contact on the ground, with a 1.63 ground-out to air-out ratio and a 5.1 percent barrel rate. At 90 pitches that pace carries him into the sixth. The Giants are sending out a lineup without Rafael Devers, and the bottom four are Whitcomb at a .506 OPS, Cavanaugh at .597, McCray at .563 and Koss at .594. Drew Gilbert is 2 for 16 over the past week and Jung Hoo Lee is 3 for 21. Bryce Eldridge is the one at-bat that demands care. The rest of the order is where quick outs come from, and Oracle Park in a day game does not turn mistakes into crooked numbers. The way this loses is a walk-filled early inning that pushes him to 85 pitches by the end of the fifth. With every Cardinals reliever but Graceffo rested, Marmol would have no reason to push. That makes this close to a coin flip on its own, which is why the price matters. Plus money on a pitcher who has gone this deep in two of every three starts this year, against the weakest nine he will see this month, is a number I take once.

The home run board has three Cardinals, and the one whose swing fits the afternoon is Nolan Gorman. He is a pull hitter from the left side, and the wind is blowing out toward a right field corner that sits 309 feet away on a 77-degree day, about as friendly as Oracle Park gets for a left-handed fly ball. Blade Tidwell is the other reason. He is an extreme fly-ball pitcher, a 0.53 ground-out to air-out ratio with a 10.1 percent barrel rate allowed, and left-handers have hit .280 with an .867 OPS and four homers in 82 at-bats against him. His four-seam fastball carries a .418 expected wOBA and gets whiffs only 14.8 percent of the time, and he gave up three homers the last time he pitched in this park. Gorman is not hitting for average, .182 on the season and 0 for 6 in this series, but this market pays on home runs, not hits. Nine of his 44 hits have left the yard, eight of them against right-handers, and his last two came within the past two weeks. He bats sixth, which should get him two looks at Tidwell before the Giants go to a pen where the fresh arms are right-handers and a lefty who has not pitched in 25 days. At +600 the book is asking me to believe he goes deep about one time in seven. His 4 percent per at-bat home run rate against right-handers gets close to that before you account for the pitcher and the wind, and Tidwell's fastball is exactly the pitch Gorman's swing was built to punish.

Elias Diaz catches the lefty for Texas tonight, and the number is one hit, run, or RBI at -140. He has gotten there in 10 of his last 15 games, one of the misses was a single late at-bat on Saturday, and as a starter he has been steady: a hit in each of his last two starts, a grand slam and a sacrifice fly for a seven-unit night on the 4th, and a .294 average with a homer in September. The reason he is in the lineup is the reason I like the bet. Diaz is a different hitter against left-handed pitching, .259 with an .830 OPS and six of his seven home runs in 85 at-bats, against .213 and a .546 OPS from the other side. Schumaker went back to him even after Danny Jansen homered and drove in four last night, because Diaz is the one who hits left-handers, and Kade Anderson has been hittable: .256 with a .746 OPS allowed to right-handers, a fastball being hit at .368, and 7 walks in 15 innings. Batting eighth, Diaz sees Anderson twice before the 80-pitch cap arrives, and then Seattle's overworked pen takes over, with the middle innings most likely falling to Rucker at a 6.69 ERA or whoever Wilson trusts after Bazardo's 25-pitch meltdown last night. Diaz does not walk, eight walks against 193 at-bats this season, which means nearly every trip is a swing at a hit, and that is what this prop wants. One single, one run driven in on a groundout, one trip around the bases after reaching on an error, and the bet cashes. The way this loses is a quiet day from the bottom of the order in a pitcher's park. He is a .233 hitter, the late innings will likely come against right-handed relievers where his bat goes flat, and if the game is close Schumaker could pinch-hit Pederson for him and hand the catching to Jansen, which caps him at three trips. Three at-bats for a .233 hitter is roughly a coin flip on the hit alone, and it is the runs and RBIs that carry this above the price. With a lineup expected to score around him and a lefty on the mound who has not been putting hitters away, I think the number is short.

Ezequiel Duran leads off for Texas against a left-handed rookie on an 80-pitch leash, and the market is paying plus money on him reaching two hits, runs, and RBIs combined. He has cleared that number in 10 of his last 15 games and averages 2.1 a night for the season. He is the hottest bat in either dugout, 8-for-22 with two homers over the last week and .340 with three homers over 15 days, and the platoon split points the right way at .303 with an .870 OPS against left-handers. Kade Anderson is the reason this price exists. He has thrown between 79 and 85 pitches in each of his three starts and lasted 4.1 to 5.2 innings, so the leadoff man sees him three times, and Anderson has not been fooling anyone with the fastball. Hitters are batting .368 against it, its expected production has climbed in every start, and he has walked seven in 15 innings. Duran bats in front of Seager, Foscue, Nimmo, Langford, and Burger, and for a leadoff hitter the run column is where the second unit of this prop usually comes from. Texas has scored 6.1 runs a game over its last 10. The back half of the game helps too. Seattle used six of its nine relievers last night before a day game, and the pen carries a 6.82 ERA over the last 10 days. Muñoz, Domínguez, and Speier are rested, but somebody from Rucker at 6.69, Bazardo after 25 pitches, or Criswell and Ferrer on short rest has to cover an inning, and Duran's fourth and fifth trips to the plate come against that group. The way this loses is the strikeout. Duran punched out three times last night, he has 125 strikeouts in 477 at-bats this season, and Anderson's slider is his one genuinely good pitch, holding hitters to .143. T-Mobile Park in the daytime keeps balls in the yard, which trims the extra-base hits that make this number easy, and one hit plus nothing else is a very ordinary night that lands one short. But a leadoff hitter this hot, against this starter and this pen, should clear two more often than not, and at +109 I only need him to do it about half the time.

Justin Foscue is the reason Texas stacks seven right-handed bats against a lefty, and tonight he moves up to third in the order against Kade Anderson. Against left-handed pitching this season he is hitting .325 with a 1.020 OPS and 8 home runs in 123 at-bats. He is 7-for-17 over the last week, 12-for-33 with three homers over 15 days, and he has a hit in six straight games. At +700 the book is pricing this like a true long shot, and the platoon numbers against this pitcher say it should be shorter than that, even after discounting a 123 at-bat sample. Anderson is the key. He is on a soft 80-pitch cap and has lasted between 4.1 and 5.2 innings in his three starts, so the three-hole should get him three times: once in the first, once around the third, and once more near the fifth. His four-seam fastball at 93.6 is being hit at .368, its expected production has climbed in each of his three outings and topped out at .583 last time against the A's, when Gelof took him deep in the first inning, and his velocity ticked down in that start. Three of the six scoring plays against him this year have been home runs. A right-handed hitter who sits on fastballs and does his damage against lefties is exactly the profile that has been getting to him. The way this loses is the park and the platoon on the back end. T-Mobile Park in a day game with marine air is one of the tougher places in the league to hit one out, there is only a light crosswind, and once Anderson exits Foscue becomes a .184 hitter with a .538 OPS against right-handers, which is what Seattle will show him from Rucker, Domínguez, or Muñoz. Schumaker may also lift him for Pederson late in a close game, so I am really betting on three swings at Anderson, and long shots on three at-bats miss most of the time. But three at-bats against a rookie whose fastball is getting hit hard, for a hitter who homers this often against lefties, is worth more than 7 to 1.

Bowen is batting ninth with a .167 average and has recorded a hit in only three of his last 15 games. His limited plate-appearance profile is important, and San Diego has left-handed options available to replace him after Washington moves away from lefty Jackson Kent. Kent’s control problems could also put Bowen aboard without producing a hit. Kent’s vulnerable fastball is the risk, but Bowen’s role and contact record make the hitless side my bet.

Buehler has completed at least five innings in five consecutive starts and six of his last eight. He has also settled in lately, allowing five earned runs with 13 strikeouts and two walks across his last 16 innings. Washington can apply pressure through Wood, Chaparro and Abrams, but Buehler only needs to finish the fifth. With Morejon coming off three straight appearances, San Diego also has reason to get length from its starter. The price is heavy, but his recent workload and command support 15 outs.

Lile has hit 19 of his 20 home runs against right-handed pitching and has gone deep five times across his last 15 games. Buehler has surrendered a home run in each of his last three starts and 18 across 28 starts this season. Lile should receive enough opportunities from the sixth spot, while the wind blowing toward right field gives his left-handed power a little help. Petco Park and Buehler’s recent form keep this firmly in long-shot territory, but +700 is enough compensation for Lile’s matchup and power profile.

Gallen hasn't thrown a competitive pitch since July 7, and everything about tonight is a controlled return — a planned 55-to-65 pitch cap with Michael Soroka standing by to pick up the rest. That workload plan alone tells you this isn't a start built for a clean sheet; it's built for length management. But even setting the layoff aside, look at what Gallen was doing before he got hurt: eight straight starts allowing at least 3 earned runs, a 6.34 ERA on the season, a 44.7% hard-hit rate allowed, and a fastball getting torched to the tune of a .494 xwOBA. His command issues were the reason he went down in the first place, and four-plus months of shutdown time doesn't fix a diagnosis like that — if anything, rust compounds it. Kansas City isn't a great offense, but they don't need to be against a pitcher who was already handing out damage before the injury. Two runs is a low bar in this matchup, and I think he clears it before he ever sees a laptop with his final pitch count on it.

Lynch has gone under 14.5 outs in five of his last six starts, and the profile fits again tonight. His first-inning ERA this year is 9.00 across those 6 innings — he gives up traffic early and often before he ever finds a rhythm, and Arizona's lineup is exactly the kind that punishes that. The Diamondbacks hit .274 with a .775 OPS as a team against left-handed pitching this season, and Lynch is a lefty who's averaged barely over 10 innings a start across his six outings this year. Kansas City's bullpen has also been worked hard the last three days, which puts extra pressure on manager Matt Quatraro to let Lynch try to soak up innings — except the track record says that plan usually breaks down by the fourth or fifth. I'll note his last outing did clear this number at 15 outs, so he's shown he can get through five when things go right. But the larger sample points the other way, and against this lineup with this recent bullpen strain working against a long hook, I like the under.

Jensen is the hottest bat in this Royals lineup right now — a .391 average and 1.505 OPS in September with 3 home runs in just 23 at-bats, and he's a left-handed hitter who has feasted on right-handed pitching all year with 19 of his 22 homers coming against righties. Gallen is a right-hander who has allowed a homer in 18 of his 19 starts this season and whose four-seam fastball has been hit at a .341 average and .494 xwOBA — the exact kind of mistake-prone heat a hot hitter like Jensen turns around. This is a longshot because Jensen still strikes out plenty and Gallen could easily get himself into an early hook before Jensen sees him more than once or twice. But the price reflects that risk, and the recent form plus the platoon and pitch-quality matchup make this a live longshot rather than a total lottery ticket.

Story is 1-for-8 this series with a double but no RBIs. Over his last 15 games, he's driven in exactly 3 runs total — 12 plate appearances with 1 RBI over the last 7 days specifically. The Angels' bullpen held Boston scoreless over 7 innings two nights ago, and Story's inability to generate damage in this series speaks to a deeper timing issue against this pitching. Johnson's sinker sits at 92.3 mph with a 0.499 xwOBA — it's a pitch that induces ground balls and weak contact, not the kind of pitch that sets up RBIs. Story's ground-ball rate has ticked up, his average is down to .233, and he's pressing at the plate. The -172 price is sharp, but Story's recent history in this matchup and his mechanical struggles make the under the right call. He doesn't have to go hitless — he just has to either not get a hit or get a hit that doesn't score a run, which is exactly what's happened in six of his last seven games.

Gasper is 4-for-15 with four home runs over his last 15 games — he's hitting .267 with a .875 OPS this month after a slow August. The underlying splits are clean: he's hitting .297 with a .964 OPS against righthanders like Johnson, and his August and September numbers show real momentum in the power department. Johnson's fastball plays at 92.9 mph and he allows hard contact at a 36.9% rate. Gasper's been warming up after an August slump, and Johnson's last three starts have been clean but light on innings — none of his recent outings have pushed past 6.0 innings, which means bullpen arms will be throwing early. That's good news for Gasper's chances to get a fastball to hit. At +600, the book is pricing in a 14% win probability, and I have Gasper closer to 18-20% to go deep here. He's rested (didn't play yesterday), his bat is live, and Johnson's velocity gets hit hard. The price compensates enough.

Luis Garcia Jr. has gone deep in three of his last fifteen games, and tonight he's got a real edge in the matchup. He's facing Tomoyuki Sugano, whose fastball and sinker have both been hit hard all season — both sitting north of .430 xwOBA, which is historically brutal. More specifically, Garcia faces a pitcher who's given up home runs freely: across his last three starts alone, Sugano's allowed 6 homers in 13 innings. Garcia himself has been a power guy when he connects — .294 AVG, .902 OPS against righties this year, 25 homers in 385 right-handed at-bats. The Yankee Stadium porch in left field is also a factor; it sits just 314 feet down the line. Sugano's first-inning ERA is 6.84, and Garcia traditionally sees fastballs early in counts. This isn't a high-volume home run play — it's a specific matchup where the pitcher's recent form, the batter's power profile, and the venue all line up. At +357, I'm getting near 3-to-1 odds on a guy who hits homers against pitchers who are surrendering them at an alarming rate right now.

De La Cruz is a small-sample player—only 21 games in 2026—but his season line is .321 AVG / .846 OPS with 2 home runs, and he's come off the bench in five of his last 15 appearances, which explains the low volume. His problem-solving against quality stuff is real: he's hit safely in 6 of his last 15 games, and two of those were multi-hit efforts. Hunter Brown's fastball gets hit—.150 BA on the four-seam, but opposing hitters put the ball in play against him at a rate that matters. De La Cruz doesn't chase often (one walk in his last 15 games is the downside), but he makes contact when he gets a pitch to hit. At a modest -155 price for a player carrying a .321 season average in limited action, I'm backing him to record one hit, run, or RBI tonight. The Phillies need offense; De La Cruz is sitting in the nine-hole, which means he'll likely see two or three pitches, and Brown's control numbers suggest there will be hittable stuff available.

Command is the separator for Henderson right now, and I don't see that changing tonight. He's issued just fourteen walks across more than eighty innings this season, and over his last eight starts he's stayed at or under one walk in six of them. The one time he's already faced this Cubs lineup, six days ago at Wrigley, he went seven innings and didn't walk a single hitter. He's also been stretching deeper into games lately, six-plus innings in three of his last four outings, and pitchers working ahead in counts and going deep aren't the ones piling up free passes. This is a strike-thrower doing what he does against a lineup he's already handled once this month.

Mitchell is somebody I want in against a right-hander, and Kevin Gausman fits that description exactly. His numbers against righties this year, .266 with eight of his nine home runs, actually top what he does against lefties, so tonight's matchup plays to his strength rather than against it. He's running hot right now, five hits in his last fourteen at-bats, and he's carried that form into a strong September stretch. This is a low bar to clear, one hit, run, or RBI, and he's cleared it in eleven of his last fifteen games. Gausman is also working as a true road pitcher tonight, where his numbers fall off from his home production, and he's had a history of letting the first inning get away from him. I like Mitchell to find his way onto this scoresheet somewhere tonight.

Crow-Armstrong is running as hot as anyone in this lineup, eight home runs in his last fifteen days and three of them in the last week alone. He already has a home run off Logan Henderson this season, and it wasn't a fluke swing, he squared one up and drove it out to center field in their last meeting just six days ago. His power also skews toward right-handers, thirty of his forty-one home runs this year have come against them, which lines up with facing Henderson again tonight. He's the type of hitter capable of carrying a game by himself right now, and I'll take the price on him running into one more.

Robert Stock is a 36-year-old journeyman who's been plugged into the rotation out of necessity, and his workload reflects it — he has not finished six innings in a single start all season, and his season average sits at exactly 13 outs per turn, well under tonight's number. He's gone under this total in four of his last six starts. Look at what's getting hit: his cutter and sinker combine for more than half his pitches, and hitters are batting .333 against the cutter and .391 against the sinker. That's not a subtle problem — that's the two most-used pitches in his mix getting handled consistently, and that's how a short-leash starter turns a decent outing into an early exit. His platoon splits back it up too, with quality contact allowed from both sides of the plate, so there's no favorable matchup angle for him to lean on against a Marlins lineup running six left-handed bats out there tonight. I know the Mets have talked about wanting to stretch him deeper into games as the rotation situation stays thin, and he's working with extra rest. But the baseline here is a pitcher who gets hit hard early and often, on a team whose own stated expectation walking into tonight is a bullpen that covers five-plus innings. I'll take the under.

Janson Junk is in the best form of his season. Over his last three starts he's posted a 1.88 ERA, and he's allowed two earned runs or fewer in five outings in a row. He's cleared this outs total in seven of his last eight turns, and the season-long shape backs the trend up — a 3.53 ERA across twelve home starts compared to 4.78 on the road, with a 1.72 mark over his last three specifically at loanDepot Park. He's also already faced this exact Mets lineup once this season, on July 31, and worked five shutout innings. The honest risk here is the platoon split. Junk holds right-handed hitters to a .613 OPS but gets hit for .786 by lefties, and tonight's Mets order is stacked with left-handed bats at the top. That's the same shape of lineup that knocked out both Sandy Alcantara and Eury Perez early in the first two games of this series. Junk isn't either of those two arms, though — he's been the far steadier, better-commanded pitcher on this staff all year, and I'm backing his current form and his history against this specific opponent to carry him through the number tonight.

Heriberto Hernandez already has 24 home runs this season and he's in the middle of a real power run — five home runs in his last fifteen games, two of them in the last week. That power travels against right-handed pitching too; he's got fourteen home runs in 251 at-bats against righties this year, and he draws one tonight in Robert Stock. Stock's fastball-family pitches are exactly the problem. Hitters are batting .333 against his cutter and .391 against his sinker, and those two pitches make up more than half of what he throws. That's a pitcher leaving hittable stuff over the plate, and Hernandez, running this hot, is the kind of bat that turns one mistake into a home run. I like the price on this swing.

Ryan McMahon is running about as cold as anyone in this lineup right now. He's hitting .182 with a .490 OPS over his last week, which lines up with a season mark of .216 average and a .647 OPS — right now this is a bottom-of-the-order bat, not a threat to carry an inning. Combined hits, runs, and RBIs have landed at one or fewer in eleven of his last fifteen games, and last night was more of the same outside of a single double. Tomoyuki Sugano has had real trouble keeping the ball in the park against left-handed power this season, so I won't pretend there's zero risk of one swing turning this into a loser. But the swing-and-miss and the empty at-bats have been the bigger story for McMahon lately, and hitting seventh against a pitcher who can also generate empty swings with his splitter, the modest number is the smarter side more nights than not.

Austin Wells is a .183 hitter this season, and he's even worse against right-handed pitching specifically at .207 with a .640 mark — exactly the look he draws tonight against Sugano. He went hitless with no runs and no RBIs last night, and that blank line has been the more common outcome for him, with ten of his last fifteen games settling at one hit, run, or RBI combined or below. He has enough pull-side pop to turn this into a loser with one swing, and Sugano's specific problem this season has actually been left-handed power, so I'm not ignoring the homer risk with a lefty at the plate. But Wells has to connect first, and the quiet games have outnumbered the loud ones by a wide margin all year. Hitting eighth in this order, the low number is where I want to be.

Baz has worked at least five innings in four straight starts, and tonight he does it at home, where he's been the better pitcher all year — a 3.63 ERA at Camden against 4.18 on the road, with his last three home starts even sharper than that mark. He's already seen this Cleveland lineup once, back in April, and even while getting hit for four runs he still worked six full innings. Six of his last eight starts have cleared this number, and the lone exception, a three-inning meltdown in Minnesota, came against a lineup that squared him up all night, nothing like what's in the box tonight. Cleveland doesn't hit for power, under a homer a game as a team, so even a rough patch for Baz tends to bleed runs in singles rather than end his night in a hurry. I like him to get through 5.2 again.

Mayo has hit sixteen of his twenty-one home runs this season against left-handed pitching, and Foster Griffin throws left-handed. That's about as clean a platoon matchup as this board offers. He's running hot besides, four homers over his last fifteen days, and he put together a two-homer night just two games ago in this very series. Griffin's fastball got hit hard his last time out, an xwOBA near .385 on that pitch after sitting near .130 the start before it. Mayo swinging right-handed into that history, in a park that won't punish him for pulling one, is exactly the kind of matchup that ends up in the seats.

Baz is averaging two walks a start for the season and that hasn't changed lately — he's issued at least two in four of his last five turns. Cleveland's lineup grinds out at-bats from the top down. Kwan is on base at a .371 clip, and DeLauter, back in the two-hole tonight after missing time, carries a .365 mark of his own. As a team the Guardians draw more than three and a half walks a game. Baz still sits in the mid-90s with the fastball, but command has never been the strength of his game, and a patient order like this one tends to get the free passes it's looking for.

Bachar isn't pitching to finish games anymore, he's pitching to start them and get off the mound — tonight is his third straight turn as the Pirates' opener, and that role has come with traffic. He's walked at least one hitter in six of his last eight outings, including a start where he threw only 28 pitches before handing off. The lineup he's opening against makes it worse, not better. Munetaka Murakami has drawn 82 walks this season, Sam Antonacci owns a .366 on-base mark at the top of the order, and Chase Meidroth has 55 walks of his own from the eight-hole. Bachar works off a four-to-six-pitch mix built to miss bats rather than pound the zone, and that kind of arsenal tends to cost a free pass or two before it costs a hard-hit ball. Laying -195 isn't cheap, but a pitcher who's walked someone in three of every four starts clears that number with room in reserve.

Flores went deep in this same ballpark last night, a three-hit game that included his eighth home run in just 99 at-bats — a rate that puts him among the most productive power bats on this roster per swing, small sample notwithstanding. The wind tonight blows out to left field at eight miles an hour, and Flores is a right-handed hitter who does his pull-side damage in that direction. He's got three home runs in only 46 at-bats against right-handed pitching this season, and Davis Martin's cutter has been hit at a .382 clip with a .416 xwOBA allowed — a pitch Flores can do damage to if Martin leans on it the way he has all year. This is a longshot by design — three home runs in his last fifteen games, not a majority of nights — but he's hot, he's in the lineup behind the plate, and the ballpark conditions favor exactly the kind of swing he brings tonight.

Meidroth is a better table-setter than his spot in the order suggests. He's seeing 4.2 plate appearances a night, just a tick below leadoff man Sam Antonacci's 4.4, with 55 walks this season and a .269 average built on contact rather than power. He opened this series 0-for-3 against Sean Burke on Tuesday, and a hitter with that profile doesn't go long stretches without a knock. The pitching in front of him splits into two different problems tonight. Bachar is genuinely tough on righties, holding them to .163 this year, but he's opening again, good for two or three innings before Pittsburgh turns it over to Carmen Mlodzinski, who carries a 1.38 WHIP and is a lot more hittable. Most of Meidroth's looks tonight land against that softer stretch of the game, not against the arm built to shut him down. Four-plus trips for a contact hitter against a staff that's mostly relief arms is a fair setup for one clean single, even coming off an 0-for-3.

López is back after 44 days out with left knee inflammation, and his own rehab path tells you what to expect tonight. His final tune-up in the minors went five innings on 93 pitches, and that was treated as clearing him for a normal starter's workload rather than stretching him further — five innings is exactly 15 outs, right at this number. Across his last eight big-league starts he's finished at or under that mark seven times, and his season-long average of 13.5 outs per start isn't close to threatening it. He's also had a real problem with his first inning all year, a 7.36 ERA before he ever settles in, which tends to add stress and pitches early rather than let him work deep. On a night Atlanta doesn't need to prove anything by stretching a guy fresh off the injured list, I expect a short, managed leash. Under.

This number is about as low as a prop gets — one hit, one run scored, or one RBI clears it — and Murphy is riding real heat right now. Over his last fifteen days he's hitting .346 with a 1.238 OPS and three home runs in just 26 at-bats, a sharp turn after a quiet stretch. He catches again tonight and should see three or four plate appearances against a right-hander, and his track record against right-handed pitching this year backs that up. He's cleared this line in nine of his last fifteen games, but the trend underneath that number is what sells me — he's swinging it better right now than at any other point this season. I'll take the over.

Caminero already leads the American League with 39 home runs, and he put an exclamation point on that lead last night with a 455-foot blast against this same Atlanta pitching staff — the second-longest home run of his career. What draws me back to him again tonight is the matchup: 30 of his 39 homers this season have come against right-handed pitching, and Reynaldo López is a right-hander making his first start back from a knee injury, working to find his rhythm rather than commanding the zone cleanly. He's gone deep in four of his last fifteen games, a rate that holds up well against this price, and nothing about his recent swing suggests he's cooling off. I like him to run into one again tonight.

Elly De La Cruz has a hit in 14 of his last 15 games. He's hitting .500 with three home runs over his last seven days and .451 over his last 15, and he's carried that heat into this series, going 4-for-8 with two homers against Dodgers pitching, with a hit and a homer in each of the last two nights off Skubal and Sheehan. He gets 4.5 plate appearances a game from the two-hole, so there's plenty of opportunity even against a pitcher as good as Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Yamamoto has actually been more hittable at Dodger Stadium than on the road this year, a 3.28 ERA at home against 1.94 away from it, and De La Cruz does more of his damage against right-handers than lefties by raw count, with 15 of his 25 home runs this season coming against that side. One hit is a low bar for a hitter running this hot, at home in this park, against a pitcher who has had his rougher nights right here.

De La Cruz has gone deep in four straight games, two of them against this exact Dodgers pitching staff over the last two nights. He's a switch-hitter, so he bats left-handed against a right-hander like Yamamoto, and tonight's wind is blowing out to right field, the same direction a lefty pulls the ball. Fifteen of his 25 home runs this season have come against right-handed pitching, so the power shows up more against arms like Yamamoto's than it does against lefties. Yamamoto has been excellent all year and De La Cruz doesn't have much of a track record against him personally, but Yamamoto has still allowed nine home runs to left-handed bats this season and carries a notably higher ERA at Dodger Stadium than he does on the road. That's a long price for a hitter in the best power stretch of his season, with the wind and the platoon matchup both pointing his way tonight.

TreVeyon Henderson being out tonight isn't a footnote, it's a complete change to how this backfield operates. Henderson actually out-rushed Stevenson last season, and every one of those carries needs a new home. Behind Stevenson right now is a traded-for back who's never taken a preseason snap for this team and a running back just pulled off the practice squad this week. That's not a committee anymore, that's a bell cow. Stevenson's own per-game numbers a year ago were held down by exactly this kind of split, and he still put up 131 and 88-yard games when the volume tilted his way. Vrabel is going to want to protect Drake Maye and control the clock against a defense that got to him six times in the Super Bowl, and the way to do that is to feed the back who's earned the trust. This line has moved up from where his committee rate used to live, but it still hasn't caught up to what a true workhorse workload looks like in his first start of the season.

Smith-Njigba isn't just Seattle's leading target, he's the offense's entire identity. A target share that high doesn't happen by accident, and nothing about this offseason suggests Seattle wants to spread it out more. He cleared this kind of number in eight of his last ten games, and his season average sits well north of it. Add in a backfield that's still sorting out its pecking order without a proven lead back, and every incentive points toward leaning on the passing game early and often tonight. Christian Gonzalez is a real problem for anyone lining up across from him, and he'll have his moments. But defenses have been building entire game plans around Smith-Njigba for a year now and he still piles up the yardage regardless, because the rest of the offense is built to punish teams for the attention. This is a get-right spot for a championship offense opening its season at home, and the easiest completion in the building all night is the one that goes to their best player.

Brown is the biggest name either roster added since the Super Bowl, and New England didn't trade for him to run checkdowns. He's the outside receiver this offense is built around now, the one Maye wants finding room early to set the tone in his first night wearing this uniform, and he found the end zone seven times last year in Philadelphia without this kind of investment behind him. With Henderson out of the backfield, I like this offense to lean on the passing game in scoring range instead of forcing a green run group to finish drives, and nobody on this roster is better positioned to cash those looks in than Brown. Seattle's secondary is legitimately good, but holding a receiver in check for four quarters and keeping him off the scoreboard for one play are two different jobs. Brown is the kind of receiver who draws safety help by design, and that tends to open up single coverage somewhere close to the goal line. Plus money on a true number-one receiver in his debut with a brand-new offense built to get him the ball is a number I want on the board.

Barner scored six touchdowns on just 52 catches a year ago, and that ratio tells you exactly what he's asked to do in this offense — finish drives, not rack up volume. Seattle's passing game is going to funnel the bulk of its targets to Smith-Njigba tonight, and every defense in the building knows it. That kind of attention doesn't take a tight end out of the game plan near the goal line, it creates him as the answer underneath when coverage rolls toward the perimeter. This is also a Seattle offense easing in a new-look backfield, with Charbonnet still working back from a torn ACL and no clear lead runner named. When the ground game is this unsettled, red-zone play calls tend to lean on what's already proven, and Barner scoring in tight spaces is proven. Plus 300 on a player with that kind of touchdown rate, in a game his team is favored to control, is a shot worth taking.