We're in for a treat on Wednesday with games across Major League Baseball beginning in the afternoon and wearing on into the late night out on the West Coast.
(Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
On this slate, I'm taking a look at two totals -- one of which backs two effective starting pitchers in a matchup between two slumping offenses and one of which fades two left-handers who carry a plethora of issues into their starts.
I'm also loving one of the best arms in the league to deliver in a revenge spot as a home underdog.
Let's go over the best ways to bet on the MLB slate for Wednesday, June 12.
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BEST BET FOR WASHINGTON NATIONALS VS DETROIT TIGERS
I'm a noted fan of Reese Olson, and I'm willing to keep believing here amidst what's been an awful month of June. The righty has allowed 13 runs between his two starts, spanning 9 1/3 innings, and while he's allowed an ordinate number of hits he's still maintained an excellent strikeout-to-walk ratio.
This is critical because the Nationals have been struggling to take walks and that's resulted in a near-23% strikeout rate over the last two weeks and some weakly-hit balls, amounting to a poor .093 Isolated Power within the split.
Olson's maintained a palatable Expected Batting Average all season long, and over the last two starts he's run into some trouble with teams who can crush fastballs.
Washington has been extremely poor against the pitch, ranking 24th in run value per 100 fastballs, and with a run value of -0.15 per 100 sliders and -0.33 per 100 changeups he should be able to use his arsenal to success here.
I'm concerned about the offense, however, which is why I like the total here.
- Detroit has lost cornerstone outfield bat Kerry Carpenter and stumbled to a 71 wRC+ over the last two weeks, and against lefties they're ranked just 26th in the league -- partially due to the fact that Carpenter was not in there against lefties as a strong-side platoon bat.
Jake Irvin has been great for Washington this year with a 3.12 ERA in 13 starts and with an injection of strikeouts since April he should feast on a team which has lacked discipline at the plate over those aforementioned two weeks. The total is just a hair too high for my liking.
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Best Bet: Under 7.5 (-110 at
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BEST BET FOR MIAMI MARLINS VS NEW YORK METS
While I acknowledge that the Mets have turned themselves into something of a pitching factory this season, it has to stop somewhere, and that's with David Peterson.
The tall lefty has been nothing more than a theory throughout his big-league career. He throws with a ton of extension and rolls up ground balls, flashing the tools to be a solid member of any rotation, but the issue is that in a large sample he's never been able to figure out how to pitch in professional baseball.
Peterson wore a 4.19 ERA in a full Double-A season in 2019, failed to do much good at the big-league level in the next three years, and after getting sent back down for parts of the last two years still managed to push his ERA close to five runs at Triple-A.
He then got hurt, and posted some good numbers in a handful of innings on a rehab assignment, but the sum of the parts still equates to a bad pitcher.
- New York's starter on Wednesday continues to pitch to a ton of hard-hit balls, and in his 11 2/3 innings at this level he's produced an extremely poor .297 xBA with no strikeouts to speak of.
- He will draw the Marlins here, sure, but Miami has hit right around the league average at .240 over the past two weeks which is a big deal considering what's burned Peterson over the years is a non-stop assault of base hits.
- The Fish have also owned a very solid .252 average with runners in scoring position this year, so I do think they should manage to capitalize when Peterson puts runners on base.
On the flip side, the Mets have been the fourth-best offense in baseball over the last two weeks by wRC+ and rank fifth against lefties in that category for the season.
- Braxton Garrett has had some issues in his own right in the xBA department over the years, and has allowed a 48.1% hard-hit rate this season in front of what's been one of the league's very worst defenses.
With a ton of balls coming back in play on account of his below-average strikeout rate, the Mets should be more than capable of bringing his issues to light and producing a high-scoring affair.
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Best Bet: Over 7.5 Runs (-112 at DraftKings)
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BEST BET FOR PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES VS BOSTON RED SOX
It's time to finally talk about some good pitchers here as Wednesday's game in Boston will feature two highly-competent arms in Cristopher Sanchez and Nick Pivetta. While I'm a big believer in both of these guys, I think the matchup is going to skew towards the underdog here at home.
- It'll be a revenge start here for Pivetta against his former team, and I think he's ready for the challenge with a 31.5% strikeout rate to put him in the elite tier of starters and another wonderful showing in the xBA department to this point at .229.
The righty has produced a wealth of fly balls this season, and while that can be a concern in Boston it's worth noting that he's induced them with an extremely low exit velocity and will be pitching to a team which owns a .248 average against fly-ballers -- a number which ranks highly but as you might deduce it seems fly ball pitchers are having far more success this year versus ground-ballers like Cristopher Sanchez.
- The Red Sox are sporting the second-best mark in the league against ground-ball arms, hitting .302, and that's come along with a beefy .864 OPS.
They're also heating up, ranking right in the middle of the league in wRC+ over the last two weeks after a disappointing season, and while those numbers -- and their figures over the last two weeks -- are nothing more than average, it should be said that sky-high strikeout rates have held them back from more success.
Sanchez is more of a contact-oriented pitcher with a 21% strikeout rate which misses the league average by more than a full percentage point which should make for a friendlier matchup here for the home team. I think Boston is criminally undervalued with one of the best pitchers in the American League taking the ball.
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Best Bet: Red Sox ML (+108 at FanDuel)
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