Sunday, Bloody Sunday: Tigers on the Prowl in Seattle
The M’s will turn an ‚F‘ first-five inning performance in their series finale on Sunday at 4:10 ET. The Tigers show excellent value as road dogs in Seattle
Detroit Tigers at Seattle Mariners
MLB Pick: Detroit 1H
It’s not enough for bettors to simply look at a pitcher’s ERA and make a play accordingly. For instance, Dodgers’ ace Clayton Kershaw, despite his 2.86 ERA, is one of the least profitable pitchers to back. Conversely, Boston’s Eduardo Rodriguez, whose ERA is close to 5.00, is an extremely profitable pitcher to bet on. Nationals’ ace Max Scherzer, despite his sub-2 ERA, is a strong „over“ pitcher. The list goes on. If you ask me which starting pitcher in today’s game is better, I’d take Seattle’s Wade LeBlanc over Detroit’s Francisco Liriano any day of the week…besides today. Specific match-up details and betting trends point to an early play on Detroit.
Southpaw Francisco Liriano (3-1, 4.03 ERA) starts for the Tigers. He almost never throws a fastball, which is bad news for a Mariners’ lineup which slugs the fastball notoriously well. Instead, Liriano relies on a sinker-slider combo and mixes in the occasional change-up. He utilizes his stuff extremely well against left-handed hitters by mostly throwing inside. For example, he is hitting the bottom-left corner of the strike zone 20% of the time against left-handed batters. Throwing inside increases the perceived velocity of his pitches and throwing against same-handed batters makes his pitches harder to track. Left-handed opponents are slugging under .200 against his sinker and slider. Overall, they hit .098 against him, which is bad news for the likes of Dee Gordon, Seattle’s second-best hitter in terms of BA, and Kyle Seager, both of whose career BA is between .15 and .22 lower against southpaws.
Seattle’s numbers against southpaws indicate a stark improvement from last year but only on the surface and not for long. The metric BA-xBA compares where a team’s batting average is with where it should be. Seattle is the fourth-highest overachieving team against southpaws and the fourth-highest against Liriano’s top two pitches, the sinker and slider, thrown by southpaws. So the metric indicates that Seattle’s hitting is due for regression against southpaws.
The top Mariner hitter is a righty, Jean Segura, but he is 5-for-25 lifetime against Liriano. Nelson Cruz is having a down year with a BA .48 lower than last year’s. Ryon Healy and Mitch Haniger are batting way worse, below .250, in the daytime, which is symptomatic of the team as a whole. Seattle’s OPS (on-base plus slugging) is .42 lower in the daytime, which is a big reason why Seattle’s 1H ML is only 1-4-1 on Sundays.
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Wade LeBlanc (0-0, 2.51 ERA) counters for Seattle. LeBlanc is coming off a strong performance against the most overachieving team against lefties, Minnesota, which finally hit regression in his outing. LeBlanc is characterized by the variety of his pitches and their lack of velocity. With variety he tries to remain unpredictable. He doesn’t throw any one pitch in any one circumstance (i.e. first pitch, batter ahead, etc.) more than 51% of the time. Smartly, he throws his most effective pitch, the sinker, most frequently, although he’s been extremely inconsistent with its results, based on game-by-game opposing slugging percentage against it.
The Tigers match up well against him in two decisive senses. They rank eighth in slugging against low velocity, pitches that average less than 90 mph, eighth against lefties, and sixth against low velocity from lefties. The metrics indicate that the Tigers are nonetheless underachieving in all three categories.
Detroit also doesn’t share Seattle’s daytime struggles. Look out for Nick Castellanos, who bats .472 against lefties and .352 daytime. James McCann hits .280 against lefties and daytime. Also, Jose Iglesias has been very hot the past seven days and hits .346 against lefties and is at his best in the day.
The M’s will turn an ‚F‘ first-five inning performance in their series finale on Sunday at 4:10 ET. The Tigers show excellent value as road dogs in Seattle
Detroit Tigers at Seattle Mariners
MLB Pick: Detroit 1H
It’s not enough for bettors to simply look at a pitcher’s ERA and make a play accordingly. For instance, Dodgers’ ace Clayton Kershaw, despite his 2.86 ERA, is one of the least profitable pitchers to back. Conversely, Boston’s Eduardo Rodriguez, whose ERA is close to 5.00, is an extremely profitable pitcher to bet on. Nationals’ ace Max Scherzer, despite his sub-2 ERA, is a strong „over“ pitcher. The list goes on. If you ask me which starting pitcher in today’s game is better, I’d take Seattle’s Wade LeBlanc over Detroit’s Francisco Liriano any day of the week…besides today. Specific match-up details and betting trends point to an early play on Detroit.
Southpaw Francisco Liriano (3-1, 4.03 ERA) starts for the Tigers. He almost never throws a fastball, which is bad news for a Mariners’ lineup which slugs the fastball notoriously well. Instead, Liriano relies on a sinker-slider combo and mixes in the occasional change-up. He utilizes his stuff extremely well against left-handed hitters by mostly throwing inside. For example, he is hitting the bottom-left corner of the strike zone 20% of the time against left-handed batters. Throwing inside increases the perceived velocity of his pitches and throwing against same-handed batters makes his pitches harder to track. Left-handed opponents are slugging under .200 against his sinker and slider. Overall, they hit .098 against him, which is bad news for the likes of Dee Gordon, Seattle’s second-best hitter in terms of BA, and Kyle Seager, both of whose career BA is between .15 and .22 lower against southpaws.
Seattle’s numbers against southpaws indicate a stark improvement from last year but only on the surface and not for long. The metric BA-xBA compares where a team’s batting average is with where it should be. Seattle is the fourth-highest overachieving team against southpaws and the fourth-highest against Liriano’s top two pitches, the sinker and slider, thrown by southpaws. So the metric indicates that Seattle’s hitting is due for regression against southpaws.
The top Mariner hitter is a righty, Jean Segura, but he is 5-for-25 lifetime against Liriano. Nelson Cruz is having a down year with a BA .48 lower than last year’s. Ryon Healy and Mitch Haniger are batting way worse, below .250, in the daytime, which is symptomatic of the team as a whole. Seattle’s OPS (on-base plus slugging) is .42 lower in the daytime, which is a big reason why Seattle’s 1H ML is only 1-4-1 on Sundays.
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Wade LeBlanc (0-0, 2.51 ERA) counters for Seattle. LeBlanc is coming off a strong performance against the most overachieving team against lefties, Minnesota, which finally hit regression in his outing. LeBlanc is characterized by the variety of his pitches and their lack of velocity. With variety he tries to remain unpredictable. He doesn’t throw any one pitch in any one circumstance (i.e. first pitch, batter ahead, etc.) more than 51% of the time. Smartly, he throws his most effective pitch, the sinker, most frequently, although he’s been extremely inconsistent with its results, based on game-by-game opposing slugging percentage against it.
The Tigers match up well against him in two decisive senses. They rank eighth in slugging against low velocity, pitches that average less than 90 mph, eighth against lefties, and sixth against low velocity from lefties. The metrics indicate that the Tigers are nonetheless underachieving in all three categories.
Detroit also doesn’t share Seattle’s daytime struggles. Look out for Nick Castellanos, who bats .472 against lefties and .352 daytime. James McCann hits .280 against lefties and daytime. Also, Jose Iglesias has been very hot the past seven days and hits .346 against lefties and is at his best in the day.
