Saturday FreePlay Texas Rangers at Tampa Bay Rays
Rangers ML-104 (BetRivers) risking 1.3u to win 1.25u
You must go back to May 3rd and May 5th to find back-to-back losses for the Texas Rangers. After getting a complete game from Gray on Thursday yet losing 1 nil, they got hammered by Tampa last night from an excellent start by Glasnow and not so much from Heaney and the pen for Texas. The Rangers are 14-6 off a loss and seem to be more inspired heading back to the ballpark. I mean hey, good teams are right? Yes, I just called them a good team. Potential comeback player of the year candidate, and in my opinion Cy Young (I know it’s a reach) candidate Nathan Eovaldi takes the mound for Texas looking to stop this slide. Now stopping Tampa’s offense will be no easy task, as they are 2nd in the league in offense and home runs, and 1st in OPS. They have struggled at the plate as of late, only hitting .220 in their last 10, while averaging 4 runs per game well below their season average. Eovaldi has just been a monster this year, sporting a 2.29 ERA, 1.49 on the road and recording 52 of his last 54 inning pitched SCORELESS! Also ranking at the top of the league in almost every advance metric out there. Baseball savant has his velocity and movement this season compared to Wheeler 2019 and 20, Thor in 2018 and Burnes in 2020. His fastball is coming in at 96mph this season, with times hitting 100. More importantly he ranks at the top of league in barrel % and xERA/xwOBA. Tampa as a team is hitting .190 vs Eovaldi, with Franco and Diaz each 2/12 vs him and Arozarena 1/13. This is the heart of Tampa’s offense. He has much success vs Tampa in general facing them 6 times as a Red Sock the last 2 years, with 5 of the 6 being excellent starts. I think this is a terrible spot for Rays starter Taj Bradley who since his call back up from the minors has been better but has still had a share of problems. Garcia, Jung and Duran all righties, have an xSLG in the .500’s which is bad news for Bradley with righties hitting almost .300 off him this year. Let’s take the Rangers today to get the win in Tampa for a small unit upgrade.
