4/24 MLB

Washington (Mikolas)/Chi. White Sox (B. Hudson) Over 9 (-115) (0.43125-0.375)

~~Chi. White Sox (Fedde) -1 (+116.817) (0.3-0.35045) – Void~~

LA Angels (Kikuchi)/Kansas City (N. Cameron) Under 4.5 (1st 5) -103 (0.309-0.3)

Philadelphia (Painter)/Atlanta (G. Holmes) Over 8.5 (-124) (0.372-0.3)

Added 10 AM:

Miami (Alcantara)/San Francisco (Houser) Over 7.5 (-112) (0.336-0.3)

Baltimore (B. Young) -115 (0.345-0.3)

Chi. White Sox -1 (B. Hudson) +117.563 (0.3-0.35269) (vs. Poulin as of 3 PM, bet here again at same price)

Added 6 PM:

Cleveland (G. Williams)/Toronto (Scherzer) Over 4.5 (+100) (1st 5) (0.3-0.3)

Added 10 PM:

Chi. Cubs (Taillon)/LA Dodgers (Sheehan) Over 9 (-108) (0.324-0.3)

Last lean is Cubs/Dodgers over 9 later tonight.

For WAS/CHW – FD lists Hudson for CWS while other spots list Fedde. Believe that Fedde is the starter here, but the over should be “action” and should apply. ***Turns out Hudson will open here, so made a new -1 wager that will replace the Fedde -1 above
- Mikolas and Fedde should follow the openers here. Mikolas has been one of the worst pitchers in baseball thus far. Yes, he’s been unlucky (2.75 HR/9, 55.6% LOB, .343 BABIP), but he’s been bad as well (ERA estimators between 5 and 7). He was effective in relief last time out with 4 SO IP against the punch-less Giants, but I’ll have to see more of that to believe in him in any way, especially with no evidence of a velo bump or pitch mix change as of yet. CWS is also rolling offensively, scoring 44 runs in their six game road trip. Fedde has been OK for CWS – he had been decently effective early on, as he slashed his BB rate (3 in 16 IP), but he walked four last time out. To top it off, these two teams own a few of the worst BPs in the league in the early going – they rank in the bottom two in the league with xFIPs around 5.

In Kansas City, we have two struggling pitchers in Kikuchi and Cameron, but maybe some reason for optimism here. Kikuchi has had a bizarre career, seemingly filling an ace-adjacent role, an middle rotation role, and a battered deep starter role, sometimes each a couple of time in the same season. He made some adjustments coming into the year, and has struggled badly out of the game. However, he went back to his old motion and arm-slot in his last start, and fired off 6 SO IP with 8 K against San Diego. Cameron was average LY in almost 140 IP (ERA estimators in the low 4s), but ran white-hot en royte to a 2.99 ERA. It has flipped this year so far – the K/BB rates are identical, but the fly ball and HR rates has flown up early (5 HR in 20 IP thus far). He is boasting just a 25% GB rate as well. Going to cut him some slack though, 3 of those HR came last time out @NYY, and he gets a cooler night tonight with a bit of wind drifting in. Also, the sample size is small (48 PA), but the Angels have been the worst team in the league against LHP early on.

Warmer night in Atlanta (upper 70s) as the red hot Braves (fresh off 28 runs in their four game WAS series), welcome in the reeling Phillies. Some optimism that the Phillies offense is coming around after 7 runs yesterday at Wrigley, and it cant get much worse than the previous two weeks anyway. They get pretty much a league average arm here in Holmes – he’s running good so far with .208 BABIP. Painter has been good in his first 18 MLB innings with a 20:4 K:BB and just 1 HR allowed. On the surface he’s even been unlucky with a .370 BABIP. However, I expect the BBs and HR to eventually rise as he was between 3.5 and 4 BB/9 LY in AAA with a HR/9 hovering around 1.5. It’s possible he’s improved, but his in-zone pitch rate is at 46.7%, about 2% below the MLB average, so I expect those walk numbers to rise over time. He’s been buoyed by a 35% chase rate (6.5% above league avg), which could be a sign of a league still getting used to his arsenal. He’s been unlucky on the surface, but it’s hard to expect he has just cut his AAA weaknesses from LY in half in the majors. I think those will pop back up against better offenses and once hitters see him a few times. And it just so happens the Braves saw him just five days ago (3 ER in 4 IP).

Baltimore bet is more of a fade of Bello, who just looks out of sorts. The GB rate has remained, but so far the velo is down 1.5 MPH and the K:BB is barely over 1:1. He is a fade until he shows life. On the surface, there isn’t a ton of reason to be confident in Brandon Young – he wasn’t good in his MLB debut LY – a 6.24 ERA and a 1.87 HR/9 in 57.2 IP (estimators in mid-4s to low-5s). He added a sinker coming into the year, and so far the results have been good in both the MLB (5 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 2 K) and AAA (1.08 ERA in 16.2) in a small sample. Though, I will say that he was also strong in a limited sample in AAA last season before struggling to put it together in his MLB debut season.

It’s hard to give rousing support for the Miami or SF offenses, but this just seems too low given the struggles of the pitchers. Alcantara was hoping to bounce back from the worst season of his career, and it looked good early with 24.1 IP, 10 H, 2 ER, 4 BB, 18 K in his first three starts. In his last two @DET/MIL – 11 IP, 15 H, 10 ER (4 HR), 8 BB, 5 K. He had 6 BB last time out, so it’s just not going well at the moment. The K/9 has slowly eroded over the L4Y (despite retaining velo), and it stands at just 5.86/9 right now. Houser has kept the GB at an above-average rate and the HR low, but he isn’t striking anyone out, so there’s just a ton of balls in play against him.