Rough start to the second half as we are currently at 7-14 Post All-Star Break after a nice 27+ Unit run through June and July prior to the break.
3 Plays on the card today, You can find all my plays right here at TheOddsbreakers.com. The Free Play of the three evaluates the Mariners and Astros battling in Houston tonight.
Logan Gilbert has been a pillar of consistency all year long. Over the course of 20 starts he has never gone less than 5 Innings Pitched. Gilbert has also not allowed over 4 Earned Runs all season (Happened 3 times) and has allowed 1 Earned run or less in 10 of the 20 outings. His underlying stats say he has been lucky with a 3.69 xFIP vs his actual 2.77 ERA. His strand rate is a little high and BABIP against a little low, but my main concern with Gilbert is his hard hit rate hasn’t hurt him as much as it should to this point. This will be his 4th start against the Astros this year, and he is 2-1, losing Saturday in a pitcher’s dual with Justin Verlander. He has a 2.05 ERA with a 16/4 K/BB ratio over 22 innings against the Astros this year. The fact that he has been able to keep one of the most high powered offenses in check over 22 innings tells me he will perform at a solid level against the Astros tonight.
Jose Urquidy is the opposing starter tonight for the Astros, and while he has pitched better of late there are still some underlying issues for Urquidy. Let’s start with what he is doing differently in his recent starts. Since June 14th he is 4-1 with a 2.97 ERA and a 34/10 K/BB ratio. They biggest reason for his recent success has been increased slider usage, which has been over 10% of his pitch mix in each of his last 7 starts (Compared to only once prior). It has been a highly successful pitch for him and has helped drastically lower his BABIP against compared to what he was doing earlier in the year. Even with the adjustments his xFIP in all but one of his last seven starts has been drastically higher than what the actual performance was. The Mariners just saw Urquidy and that slider this weekend and he held them to 1 Earned run over six innings. However this will be his 5th start vs the Mariners and Urquidy is only 1-3 with a 7.56 ERA. If the Mariners can figure out the slider I expect some increased level of success compared to the last match-up.
As far as intangibles, the Astros swept the Mariners and a day night double header from the Yanks to open up the second half and then were swept themselves in Oakland the last three nights. The Mariners bounced back from their series with the Astros by sweeping the Rangers the last 3 nights. The Astros are the superior offensive team vs right handers holding a .748 OPS compared to the Mariners .703. No team in MLB is hotter than the Mariners. Since June 21st they are 25-6. They haven’t made up much ground as the Astros are 23-10 over the same time frame.
I have this as at even money for the Mariners or a -110 pick-em so I think there’s value on Seattle at +125. Taking the Dogs for 1.5 Units.
