Sports Thoughts

Boston (Early)/St. Louis (May) Over 7.5 (+100) (0.4-0.4)

Pittsburgh (Mlodzinski)/Chi. Cubs (Imanaga) Under 6.5 (-102) (0.306-0.3)

Pittsburgh (Mlodzinski)/Chi. Cubs (Imanaga) Under 3.5 (-113) (1st 5) (0.339-0.3)

Washington (Irvin)/Milwaukee (C. Patrick) Over 8 (-120) (0.36-0.3) (NO BET W/ ASHBY OPENING)

Arizona (Soroka)/Philadelphia (Luzardo) Under 4.5 (-110) (1st 5) (0.33-0.3)

Atlanta (Elder) -132 (0.396-0.3)

6:00 PM EST:

For now, Wash/Milwaukee bet cancelled with Ashby opening for Patrick. Line slightly higher so not taking again as of yet.

6:50 PM EST:

Added:

Minnesota (Woods-Richardson) +139 (0.3-0.417)

Minnesota (Woods-Richardson)/Toronto (Corbin) Over 9 (+100) (0.3-0.3)

Leans: Minnesota +120, Min/Tor Over 9 (-105), Hou/Sea under 7.5

Some write-ups coming up.

• Double-dipping with unders in Chicago in a cold day at Wrigley with the wind blowing in. This should specifically help Imanaga, a heavy fly ball pitcher that has homer problems. Otherwise both of these guy are strike-throwers that have no problem having the ball put in play. I put an increased emphasis on free base-runners in cold, likely lower scoring games like this, and neither of these guys is known for control inconsistencies.

• Weather not ideal in St. Louis (64 degrees, slight wind blowing in), but can’t ignore May’s struggles. May was poor last year with a nearly 5 ERA and mediocre to poor metrics across the board. Last year his velo was at 95.5 (down 3-4 MPH from peak). He’s back to 97 so far this year, but the results have been horrendous to start – 7.1 IP, 17 H, 13 ER, 3 BB, 7 K against TB/DET. Those number will improve of course, but he has managed a swinging strike rate of just over 5% in those two starts despite the velocity jump, so he’s just not fooling anyone so far. There is optimism on Early since he has great K rates and HR suppression in the minors (and hasn’t given up a HR in 28+ MLB Innings), but he did have walk problems in the minors and has 6 in 9.1 innings so far this year. Also like Boston TT over in this one.

• Irvin has showed some signs of improvement for Washington, but I need to see more before I believe it. Washington had little option but to continue to trot him out LY, which is why he ended up with a 5.7 ERA (metrics didn’t call for much better) in 180 IP. He had just 6.2 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, and an ugly 1.9 BB/9. He added an mile per hour to his velo and is throwing his cutter more early (metrics like pitching+ and stuff+ also now like his arsenal more). That said, thus far he pitched well @Chicago on a cold day and poorly vs. the Dodgers – neither tells us much about his prospects going forward.

• Luzardo had a rough opener vs Texas (where six of his 7 baserunners allowed scored over 6 innings), then followed it up with a gem @Colorado. The Texas start looks like nothing but a blip on the radar – he’s stuff is as good as ever and he has been every bit of an ace otherwise. After several injury-riddled seasons, Soroka went 90 inning LY and was decent with mostly average metrics across the board. This year he looks to be continuing that progress – he won’t continue to strand 92% of runners, but the velocity is up a tick and stuff looks improved as well. The Phils offense still looks lethargic (even compared to the league-wide power outage with the early cold weather), and they haven’t scored in 20 innings.

• Cecconi has been fine for Cleveland so far, though he has interestingly been down 1 tick on velo after displaying a 2 MPH increase in spring training. He has been fine so far but this bet is more about the other guy toeing the bump. Elder was roughed up LY but seemed to be healthier with improved stuff down the stretch (2.82 ERA, 3.3 FIP in final 7 starts). It has continued into this season, featuring a new pitch mix (flipping his usage of sinker/slider, featuring slider more along with adding a cutter) that came out of off-season work with Greg Maddux. He had rolled through two starts so far, and there’s reason to believe the improvement is real.