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As always, tonight AppleTV+ will host two baseball games for all the action on Friday night. We start off with a very good pitching matchup between the Marlins and Braves, followed by the Phillies taking on the Giants. Let’s discuss two bets for each game you can sweat along with as you watch.
This is such a low number, but with the way Alcantara has pitched all season long, I’m comfortable taking it. This will be the third time he’s facing this Braves team, and they simply have not been able to figure him out. Through 17 innings, they’ve only managed to scratch across one run on 10 hits with 21 strikeouts. If that isn’t impressive enough, Alcantara has only allowed at least three runs in five of his 26 starts, which accounts for just 19% of his season.
The Braves are a scary team to take such a number, but Alcantara has had his way with this offense. Seeing as they’re one of the most strikeout-prone teams in the league, it’s no surprise to see that Alcantra was able to get ahead in the count on numerous occasions. When he has been ahead of the Braves, 0-1, they have yet to score a run against him and only collected four hits. Alcantara has been one of the best pitchers in the league all season long and is currently running away as the odds-on favorite to win the National League Cy Young Award. I think he has another good performance tonight and keeps this Braves team under 2.5 runs.
With the idea that the Braves won’t be getting much offense off Alcantara, the same can be said about the Marlins. They’ve been one of the lowest-scoring offenses in all of baseball coming out of the All-Star break. Since that time, the Marlins have scored a total of 97 runs, which puts them in the bottom of the league. They’re the only team in baseball that has not scored at least 100 runs in the second half of the season. As a club, it’s slashing just .211/.276/.325, all of which rank dead last.
The Marlins should continue to struggle again tonight against Charlie Morton. Aside from a couple of bumps against more prolific offenses lately, Morton just wrapped up August with a 3.26 ERA and a .283 wOBA through 30 1/3 innings. If anything, he’s been getting better as the season rolls on, especially when you consider he allowed 30 runs over the first two months of the season. He did face the Marlins during that stretch, but they only tagged him for three runs on seven hits in 5 1/3 innings. I’m thinking we get a strong result tonight in Atlanta.
Another offense that has really gone cold at the plate has been the Giants. During the month of August, they only scored more runs than the Nationals, Athletics and Marlins. During that span, they combined to hit just .222 as a club with a wOBA of .295. Tonight, they’ll go up against Kyle Gibson, who has been pitching much better of late. He’s allowed no more than two runs in five of his last seven starts and continues to induce ground balls at a high rate of 46.1%. In his lone start against the Giants earlier this season, Gibson gave up only two runs on three hits through a very solid six innings of work in Philly.
On the other side, Alex Cobb will be taking the hill for the Giants. He’s been much better in San Francisco than on the road, with more than a two-run difference in his ERA on the road. At home, Cobb has a 2.86 ERA and a .272 wOBA compared to a 5.06 ERA and a .331 wOBA on the road. Like Gibson, Cobb is a ground-ball machine and is doing it at the highest rate of his career at 61%. Thus, home runs and fly balls are extremely limited when he takes the mound. Even with the Phillies’ offense going through a resurgence with the return of Bryce Harper, I think this game goes under its total tonight.
I like grabbing the Phillies as the underdog at even money. This has been a spot where the Phillies have done well, going 22-20 this season as an underdog. Only two other teams have a better winning percentage as an underdog this season, being the Padres and Yankees. On the road is where the Phillies have been the underdog the most and then they have a record of 16-16. The Giants haven’t used home field to their advantage either, going just 34-32 in San Francisco. While this is over a .500 record, it places them 17th in winning percentage at home.
While the pitching matchup is more of a wash, the Phillies’ offense is the far superior of the two. I don’t think they’re going to knock around Cobb with how much he induces ground balls. I certainly don’t see the Giants doing it to Gibson. That said, getting the Phillies at even money feels like the play in this game.
All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and all odds subject to change.
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