Red Sox vs. Rays Sunday Night Baseball Preview and Best Bet
Boston Red Sox vs. Tampa Bay Rays
Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 7 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida
Nick Pivetta
For reasons that I will explain shortly, it's important to note that Red Sox starter Nick Pivetta's favorite pitch is his fastball.
This has always been the case for him in his career, although he's worked on developing his other offerings.
Still, he throws his fastball with 50.4-percent frequency. His season-long fastball velocity ranks in the 72nd percentile.
Its velocity and above-average spin allow him to get away with occasionally leaving it in the middle of the plate.
As heat maps show, he also likes to elevate this pitch. In the higher parts of the strike zone, his fastball develops the amplified appearance of rising action.
This rising action is generated by the spin and it causes batters to swing underneath the pitch.
Pivetta also throws more effective pitches. Especially, he'll throw his curveball more often with two strikes. With two strikes, he throws it with 29 percent frequency.
His curveball is a solid whiff pitch, which yields a .070 BA when he throws it with two strikes in the count.
Pivetta vs. Tampa Bay Batters
Pivetta has faced Tampa Bay twice this season. In these two starts, he allowed zero runs and two hits.
In 39 career at-bats against Pivetta, active Ray batters have two hits in 39 at-bats.
Austin Meadows, for example, is 0-for-6 against him.
Addressing The Counterargument
It's always important to be aware of opposing counter arguments that people will try to make.
The best reason -- although it's a bad one -- why somebody would try to talk you off of liking Pivetta is his recent results.
Recent results often occupy too much importance in people's minds.
While recent results can be useful to look at for a bet, it's important to know that it's not the results themselves that are decisive, but rather the reason for the results.
In Pivetta's case, we want to look at why his last few starts have been poor in order to predict whether we should expect him to perform poorly again tonight.
One of his last three starts came against Philadelphia, which knows him exceptionally well because he played for Philadelphia.
His two other starts came against Toronto, which also hit him hard on June 12. In other words, his form isn't poor, he's simply facing teams that do not resemble Tampa Bay in that they reliably perform well against Pivetta.
If a pitcher truly merited pessimism, then his struggles would extend beyond mere results. One telling sign is his velocity.
But during this last three-game stretch of his, Pivetta's velocity has remained around his average for the season.
So there is nothing structurally wrong with Pivetta and we have every reason to expect him to rediscover his strong form.
In addition to the history noted above, also observe that the "under" has been a solid bet in Pivetta's starts for an extended period of time.
Specifically, the "under" is 8-2 in Pivetta's last 10 starts.
Help For Pivetta?
It's hard to trust Red Sox hitters in Tampa Bay.
The Red Sox have played five times this year in Tropicana Field. Their slugging rate here, so far, is .322.
Their form is also poor. I know I just explained why Pivetta's recent results aren't decisive.
But my point about Pivetta was that he was facing opponents who are demonstrably tough for him.
Boston, however, is daily allowing opposing starting pitchers to yield superb FIPs (FIP is like ERA, but factors out fielding) against it.
Plus, Boston's current lack of scoring -- it has scored nine runs in its past three games, with three of those runs coming in one inning -- echoes its longer scoring struggles in Tampa Bay.
Match-Up With McClanahan
The Red Sox also rank outside the top 10 in slugging against Ray starter Shane McClanahan's two favorite pitches from lefties.
Moreover, McClanahan is in a strong bounce-back spot, as he's coming off a loss and he's tending to perform well after collecting the loss in his last start.
Also note that the "under" is 5-1 in McClanahan's starts against AL East opponents this season.
Best Bet: First-Half Under 4.5 at -115 at Bovada
Boston Red Sox vs. Tampa Bay Rays
Sunday, August 1, 2021 at 7 p.m. ET at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida
Nick Pivetta
For reasons that I will explain shortly, it's important to note that Red Sox starter Nick Pivetta's favorite pitch is his fastball.
This has always been the case for him in his career, although he's worked on developing his other offerings.
Still, he throws his fastball with 50.4-percent frequency. His season-long fastball velocity ranks in the 72nd percentile.
Its velocity and above-average spin allow him to get away with occasionally leaving it in the middle of the plate.
As heat maps show, he also likes to elevate this pitch. In the higher parts of the strike zone, his fastball develops the amplified appearance of rising action.
This rising action is generated by the spin and it causes batters to swing underneath the pitch.
Pivetta also throws more effective pitches. Especially, he'll throw his curveball more often with two strikes. With two strikes, he throws it with 29 percent frequency.
His curveball is a solid whiff pitch, which yields a .070 BA when he throws it with two strikes in the count.
Pivetta vs. Tampa Bay Batters
Pivetta has faced Tampa Bay twice this season. In these two starts, he allowed zero runs and two hits.
In 39 career at-bats against Pivetta, active Ray batters have two hits in 39 at-bats.
Austin Meadows, for example, is 0-for-6 against him.
Addressing The Counterargument
It's always important to be aware of opposing counter arguments that people will try to make.
The best reason -- although it's a bad one -- why somebody would try to talk you off of liking Pivetta is his recent results.
Recent results often occupy too much importance in people's minds.
While recent results can be useful to look at for a bet, it's important to know that it's not the results themselves that are decisive, but rather the reason for the results.
In Pivetta's case, we want to look at why his last few starts have been poor in order to predict whether we should expect him to perform poorly again tonight.
One of his last three starts came against Philadelphia, which knows him exceptionally well because he played for Philadelphia.
His two other starts came against Toronto, which also hit him hard on June 12. In other words, his form isn't poor, he's simply facing teams that do not resemble Tampa Bay in that they reliably perform well against Pivetta.
If a pitcher truly merited pessimism, then his struggles would extend beyond mere results. One telling sign is his velocity.
But during this last three-game stretch of his, Pivetta's velocity has remained around his average for the season.
So there is nothing structurally wrong with Pivetta and we have every reason to expect him to rediscover his strong form.
In addition to the history noted above, also observe that the "under" has been a solid bet in Pivetta's starts for an extended period of time.
Specifically, the "under" is 8-2 in Pivetta's last 10 starts.
Help For Pivetta?
It's hard to trust Red Sox hitters in Tampa Bay.
The Red Sox have played five times this year in Tropicana Field. Their slugging rate here, so far, is .322.
Their form is also poor. I know I just explained why Pivetta's recent results aren't decisive.
But my point about Pivetta was that he was facing opponents who are demonstrably tough for him.
Boston, however, is daily allowing opposing starting pitchers to yield superb FIPs (FIP is like ERA, but factors out fielding) against it.
Plus, Boston's current lack of scoring -- it has scored nine runs in its past three games, with three of those runs coming in one inning -- echoes its longer scoring struggles in Tampa Bay.
Match-Up With McClanahan
The Red Sox also rank outside the top 10 in slugging against Ray starter Shane McClanahan's two favorite pitches from lefties.
Moreover, McClanahan is in a strong bounce-back spot, as he's coming off a loss and he's tending to perform well after collecting the loss in his last start.
Also note that the "under" is 5-1 in McClanahan's starts against AL East opponents this season.
Best Bet: First-Half Under 4.5 at -115 at Bovada
