Wright is Wrong: Boston’s Starting Pitcher a Must-Fade in Baltimore
Boston begins a ten-game road stand on Monday night in Baltimore. Let’s kick it off with a double-play in anticipation of a high-scoring start for the O’s.
Boston Red Sox at Baltimore Orioles
MLB Pick: Baltimore 1H & 1H „Over“
The O’s are yielding negative units in almost every betting category. But if we followed trends thoughtlessly, we could never bet on Baltimore. Betting on baseball is unique in that there are no Cleveland Browns. Everybody wins and the reward is greater for figuring out when the bad teams win.
Boston’s Steven Wright (2-0, 1.57 ERA) is a knuckleballer. A knuckleballer has to negotiate between generating unpredictable movement and commanding his pitches within the strike zone.
Lineups can practice against the knuckleball, so some lineups are better against it. For example, one way to prepare is to not swing until it lands in the upper parts of the strike zone, where it's easier to hit. When Wright faced Baltimore on May 18, there were two spots in the two upper rows of the zone in which Baltimore slugged 2.000. The O’s managed two runs in 4.2 innings, but were victims of an unfortunately low BABIP (batting average of balls in play). Wright’s FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) was 5.04.
In each of Wright's two starts against B-more in 2017, he yielded a 10+ FIP. Since 2017, the O’s are slugging .825 against Wright's knuckleball. Trey Mancini, Jonathan Schoop, and Adam Jones have combined for seven homers against Wright. In 85 career at-bats against him, Baltimore batters are hitting .282 and slugging .647.
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Dylan Bundy (4-7, 4.04 ERA) counters for Baltimore. His ERA is inflated by three starts from April 26 to May 8 during which he yielded 19 runs in nine innings. He is striking out more batters than ever before, but still can’t be trusted to avoid critical mistakes. Boston slammed three homers against him on May 19 and ranks third in homers per game.
Bundy relies primarily on a fastball-slider combo, but also mixes in a change-up and curveball so that there’s a 17 mph velocity differential between his fastest and slowest pitch. This differential keeps hitters off-balance and improves the perceived velocity of his fastball, which is unspectacular velocity but features some arm-side movement, with which he loves to toy with batters with two strikes on the peripheries of the zone. Bundy typically starts batters off with his fastball in the upper-middle parts of the zone and finishes them off with a slider located low in order to change the batter’s eye level. He’s throwing his slider with 38% frequency in the two lowest-right corners of the zone where batters cannot be as certain whether it will be a strike. Along the way, he emphasizes his change-up and slider when the batter is ahead in the count and expects a fastball. So the key for Bundy is to remain unpredictable. During his slump, he frequently fell behind in the count. He varied the location of his pitches less and left his fastball, for example, with 4.98% higher frequency down the middle. Since May 8, Bundy's improved first-pitch strike rate is allowing him to be more unpredictable and make fewer mistakes with location. There are four fewer spots in the zone in which he’s locating his fastball with over 7% frequency. He's averaging seven innings in his last five outings.
Boston ranks first in slugging against Bundy’s two favorite pitches, the fastball and slider, against righties and metrics show them to even be underachieving. They rank second in the past two weeks in the category. Bundy has seen the Red Sox many times since 2017 and could supersede in some games the difficult match-up while he was never as poor, in terms of FIP, as Wright was against Baltimore.
I want to ride Baltimore’s success against Wright while I expect Boston to manage a couple runs from Bundy, but not enough to endanger Baltimore’s „first-five“ upset.
Boston begins a ten-game road stand on Monday night in Baltimore. Let’s kick it off with a double-play in anticipation of a high-scoring start for the O’s.
Boston Red Sox at Baltimore Orioles
MLB Pick: Baltimore 1H & 1H „Over“
The O’s are yielding negative units in almost every betting category. But if we followed trends thoughtlessly, we could never bet on Baltimore. Betting on baseball is unique in that there are no Cleveland Browns. Everybody wins and the reward is greater for figuring out when the bad teams win.
Boston’s Steven Wright (2-0, 1.57 ERA) is a knuckleballer. A knuckleballer has to negotiate between generating unpredictable movement and commanding his pitches within the strike zone.
Lineups can practice against the knuckleball, so some lineups are better against it. For example, one way to prepare is to not swing until it lands in the upper parts of the strike zone, where it's easier to hit. When Wright faced Baltimore on May 18, there were two spots in the two upper rows of the zone in which Baltimore slugged 2.000. The O’s managed two runs in 4.2 innings, but were victims of an unfortunately low BABIP (batting average of balls in play). Wright’s FIP (like ERA, but factors out luck) was 5.04.
In each of Wright's two starts against B-more in 2017, he yielded a 10+ FIP. Since 2017, the O’s are slugging .825 against Wright's knuckleball. Trey Mancini, Jonathan Schoop, and Adam Jones have combined for seven homers against Wright. In 85 career at-bats against him, Baltimore batters are hitting .282 and slugging .647.
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Dylan Bundy (4-7, 4.04 ERA) counters for Baltimore. His ERA is inflated by three starts from April 26 to May 8 during which he yielded 19 runs in nine innings. He is striking out more batters than ever before, but still can’t be trusted to avoid critical mistakes. Boston slammed three homers against him on May 19 and ranks third in homers per game.
Bundy relies primarily on a fastball-slider combo, but also mixes in a change-up and curveball so that there’s a 17 mph velocity differential between his fastest and slowest pitch. This differential keeps hitters off-balance and improves the perceived velocity of his fastball, which is unspectacular velocity but features some arm-side movement, with which he loves to toy with batters with two strikes on the peripheries of the zone. Bundy typically starts batters off with his fastball in the upper-middle parts of the zone and finishes them off with a slider located low in order to change the batter’s eye level. He’s throwing his slider with 38% frequency in the two lowest-right corners of the zone where batters cannot be as certain whether it will be a strike. Along the way, he emphasizes his change-up and slider when the batter is ahead in the count and expects a fastball. So the key for Bundy is to remain unpredictable. During his slump, he frequently fell behind in the count. He varied the location of his pitches less and left his fastball, for example, with 4.98% higher frequency down the middle. Since May 8, Bundy's improved first-pitch strike rate is allowing him to be more unpredictable and make fewer mistakes with location. There are four fewer spots in the zone in which he’s locating his fastball with over 7% frequency. He's averaging seven innings in his last five outings.
Boston ranks first in slugging against Bundy’s two favorite pitches, the fastball and slider, against righties and metrics show them to even be underachieving. They rank second in the past two weeks in the category. Bundy has seen the Red Sox many times since 2017 and could supersede in some games the difficult match-up while he was never as poor, in terms of FIP, as Wright was against Baltimore.
I want to ride Baltimore’s success against Wright while I expect Boston to manage a couple runs from Bundy, but not enough to endanger Baltimore’s „first-five“ upset.
