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Reds at Brewers Run Line
You’d be hard-pressed to find a larger disparity between two starting pitchers. Today’s Reds starter Trevor Bauer has been fantastic this season with an unbelievable 0.68 ERA and 0.57 WHIP. That comes on the back of a 36.2% K-BB% rate. Meanwhile, the Brewers will turn to the soft-tossing, veteran lefty Brett Anderson. To his credit, Anderson has managed a fairly decent 3.74 ERA. But don’t let the ERA fool you, Anderson strikes out batters at a well-below average clip of 18.4% and his hard-hit rate this season of 54.5% puts him in the bottom 3rd percentile. Add to this a Brewers offense, that has been dreadful this season as their team wOBA of .292 is currently good for fourth-worst in the league, and it’s hard to imagine them giving Bauer much trouble. The mismatch at starting pitcher gives the Reds a huge advantage in this game.
Pick: Reds -1.5 (+118 DK)
Rangers vs Athletics Total Runs
This is a game featuring two excellent starting pitchers. Lance Lynn has picked up right where he left off after last year’s resurgence. So far, a 1.37 ERA and 0.81 WHIP backed by a very strong 28% K rate. A look at the big righty’s profile on baseball savant further validates his success with an xwOBA, xBA, and xERA all within the top 86th percentile. For the Athletics, it’ll be the young hard-throwing southpaw Jesus Luzardo. He looked sharp in his last outing against the Diamondbacks throwing six and third scoreless innings with seven strikeouts (29% CSW). Most importantly he was able to get his pitch count up past 90. The highly-regarded forming pitching prospect has been impressive so far and should have no problem stifling the Rangers whose team wOBA of .313 vs lefties was 8th worst in baseball. This has all the makings of a low-scoring Pitcher’s duel.
Pick: Under (-107 DK)
Diamondbacks Total Runs
The Projections at FTN are in on the Diamondbacks this evening as their current implied team total is just over six runs. Granted, the Diamondbacks offense has been anemic this year as their current team wOBA of .301 is 8th from the bottom. Though if you consider last year’s team rankings, the Diamondbacks were just about an average offense (14th in team wOBA) so there’s reason to believe they aren’t truly as bad as they’ve shown so far this year. Unless somehow adding Starling Marte made them worse. Which seems odd. Anyway, a matchup against the righty Ryan Castellani could be just what the doctor ordered to get this offense going. So far across his 14.1 innings, Castellani has shown a below-average K rate of just 19.6%. A look at his minor league numbers doesn’t reveal anything terribly impressive either including a K rate that peaked at 21.8% in Triple-A last year to go along with a 6.26 xFIP. This is a matchup that the Diamondbacks offense should be able to take advantage of.
Pick: Over 5.5 (+114 DK)
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Featured image by Justin Paradis (@freshmeatcomm on Twitter)