After a 4 day break, it’s good to be back with some baseball! Through the first half of the season, my record sits at 107-100-3, +3.94u. We’ve got a short slate to work with today, but I do feel comfortable locking in one play before things pick up tomorrow. To receive a text when I release my plays, join my Telegram group.
*MLB(1u): Tigers F5 -0.5(-105) @ Athletics–2:37 PM CT
Tigers SP Tarik Skubal held an ERA as low as a 2.15 entering the month of June, but as he’s drawn some tougher matchups, we’ve seen him regress. With that being said, he dominated over the first 2 months of the season in his easier matchups, including against these same A’s; on May 10th, Skubal threw 7 shutout innings in Oakland. While Skubal’s ERA now sits at 4.11, a FIP at 3.02 indicates he’s pitched better than his recent cold spell would indicate. Against lefties at home this year, the A’s hold an atrocious 69 wRC+, far and away the worst in the league. I like Skubal’s trend of producing ground-balls and limiting HR’s at a career-best rate; I think he mows down the “Triple A’s”.
Athletics SP Zach Logue has not only struggled at the big league level this year, but he also holds a lowly 5.17 ERA and 1.74 WHIP in his 11 Triple-A starts. While this might surprise you, the Tigers have actually been an above average offense vs left-handed pitching away from their home ballpark this year(105 wRC+). Logue holds an ugly 0.45 GB/FB rate, which is probably why the soft lefty is allowing over 2 HR/9 at the big league level. This is a clear pitching mismatch.
The Tigers hold a significant bullpen advantage, so I couldn’t talk anybody off of the -1.5(+125). With that said, when I’m backing an offense like the Tigers, I want to isolate the matchup I feel best about. I’ll stick with the F5 -0.5 as my lone play for today.
