After a great weekend of baseball, we turn right back around on Monday with a huge 14-game MLB slate, which rather unusual to start the week but absolutely fine by me. Without further ado, let’s take a look at two games I’m eyeing closely.
New York Yankees (-191) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (+174) Total: 9
It’s no secret that the Yankees have struggled mightily at the plate to start the season. They currently sit 28th in hard-hit rate, and have only scored 4.22 runs per game. Considering the names in the lineup, and the fact that New York ranked 10th in hard hit ball last year, that’s particularly surprising. Along the same lines, however, the track record of these bats gives you confidence that things should turn.
I expect Monday night to be the first real offensive explosion of the season for the Yankees. Robbie Ray is coming off the injured list for the Blue Jays to make his first start of the season, and unless the cure for his elbow ailment was to transform him into a different human being, we can be pretty confident this start won’t go well for him.
Ray has ranked in the bottom 10% of the league in average exit velocity allowed in three of the past four years, and is coming off a season where he posted an unsightly 6.49 expected ERA. His strikeouts have gone far downhill, and he’s still walking everyone, hitting a 17.9% walk rate last year after already posting poor numbers in that column.
The Yankees, to their credit, have ranked seventh in walk rate despite their poor hitting at the plate. That, working in chorus with a pitcher that gets absolutely hammered by opposing lineups on a nightly basis, should be more than enough to set New York up for victory behind Gerrit Cole, who will face an order without Teoscar Hernandez, Lourdes Gurriel, Jr., and which is still missing George Springer. This victory should be decisive.
Edge: Yankees -1.5 (-124)
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Chicago Cubs (+116) vs. Milwaukee Brewers (-124) Total: 8.5
I’m not sure what the bookmakers are thinking giving the Cubs this great of a chance to win this game, but I’ll gladly take this line if they’re going to give it to me.
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If you’re new here, I hate this Cubs lineup, and it’s been very profitable to fade it this season. Chicago sits all the way in 29th with a .265 wOBA this year and 23rd in barrels per plate appearance. The Cubs feature no one aside from Ian Happ and Kris Bryant who really scare you in this lineup, and their left-handed bats are dreadful.
As if this wasn’t reason enough to fade the Cubs on the road, the Brewers are sending the tantalizing Freddy Peralta to the mound, who’s ranked in the top 6% of the league in expected batting average in three of the past four seasons (including his early numbers this season) and has done a spectacular job of limiting hard contact. He also gets swings and misses at a very high rate, with a 31.7 K% over his career and posted an elite 37.6% mark last season.
Peralta’s strikeout prowess, which has been on display this season with 14 Ks in seven innings, should be lethal against a whiff-happy Cubs team that ranks eighth in swinging strike rate. I expect him to be dominant, and for the Brewers bats to find a way past Adbert Alzolay, who struggled with walks last year and was touched up by the Brewers for four runs in his first start of the season.
Edge: Brewers -124
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