If you're betting on the MLB August 20th...

Arizona Diamondbacks -154 @ Miami Marlins +130

Game Total: 7.5 | Starting Pitchers: Eduardo Rodriguez (L) vs. Edward Cabrera (R) 

Edward Cabrera hasn’t made it into the sixth inning more than two times this season and will have the deck stacked against him today.  While Cabrera has looked alright from a damage perspective in the month of August, he did just give up 6 ER to the Phillies in his last start and Arizona will bring the house against right-handed pitching just like they did last night (9 runs scored on Monday). Everyone in the projected lineup for Arizona outside of shortstop Kevin Newman is in play against right-handed pitching (sorry Kevin), but our priorities should be finding hitters that also have low ground ball rates against righties as well. Joc Pederson, Eugenio Suarez, Corbin Carroll, and Adrian Del Castillo all have ground ball rates under 40% against this handedness and will all profile well in the spot. Jake McCarthy, Del Castillo, and Pederson all homered last night. This Diamondbacks team also scored four runs off Miami’s bullpen, a unit that continues to slide as time goes on.

Southpaw Eduardo Rodriguez will get another start under his belt on Tuesday evening. He has now pitched a full game’s worth of innings and has allowed 6 ER through two starts in 2024 (10 ⅔ innings). While his strikeout stuff isn’t all the way back against righties (just 8.8% right now), he’ll have an insane amount of punchout opportunities against a Marlins projected lineup that features a strikeout rate of 34.1% against left-handed pitching. Strikeouts will be there in this matchup, but it won’t come without some concern from a few dangerous hitters. Jake Burger is one of the hottest sluggers in the league right now and is carrying an ISO of .613 against lefties over the past month. Burger has five homers in the past ten games played, Jonah Bride has cleared 2+ Hits, Runs, RBIs in eight of his last ten games, and Xavier Worthy continues to be an on-base menace. The new Miami leadoff man has recorded nine stolen bases across his last ten games. Edwards is currently walking at a 17.1% clip against opposing left-handed pitchers and with sluggers Burger and Bride as hot as they are, opposing starters can’t pay enough attention to the young speedster. Backup catcher Adrian Del Castillo has been great as an offensive spark for the Diamondbacks through all their injuries, but he has not been a good defensive catcher when it comes to preventing stolen bases. Del Castillo ranks 72nd out of a qualified 75 MLB catchers in pop time to second base (2.05 seconds) and 65th out of that 75 in exchange time (0.70 seconds). Even if the catcher is Jose Herrera (27th in pop time, still not great), Edwards should be able to take advantage of any catcher on this team that isn’t Gabriel Moreno.

Home Run Leans: Joc Pederson (ARZ) / Jake Burger (MIA)

Colorado Rockies +124 @ Washington Nationals -146

Game Total: 8 | Starting Pitchers: Austin Gomber (L) vs. DJ Herz (L)

Temps in the low 70s with winds blowing in from left at 10 mph.

DJ Herz has allowed 2+ ER in seven of his last ten starts and has seen his strikeout rate dip from 27.1% on the year to righties down to just 21.7% over the last month. With that said, he will see a spike in punch out opportunities today against a Rockies squad that is whiffing 25.2% of the time against southpaws over the last month. Jacob Stallings has the best power numbers against lefties in the projected lineup while Brendan Rodgers and Michael Toglia are really solid platoon options in this spot. Toglia is riding an 11-game hitting streak with 7 extra-base hits in that timeframe (5 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR) while Rodgers has cleared 2+ Hits, Runs, RBIs in six of his last ten games. Washington’s bullpen has the 4th-highest xFIP in the majors since the trade deadline. Stallings has a home run in two of his last three games and is the strongest home run lean here.

Austin Gomber has been giving up a bunch of hits recently, averaging 6.4 hits allowed per game over his last 10 games. Away from home, the over has hit in 5 out of his last 6 road games. The Nationals also have the 5th-highest batting average against left-handed pitching over the last month as well as an implied-total just outside the top five of thirty possible offenses on Tuesday’s card (4.4 runs). Alex Call has b2b days with home runs while Keibert Ruiz will bat platoon and has three homers in his past four games played. Call, Ruiz, Yepez, Wood, and Andres Chaparro are your main looks for this side.

 Home Run Leans: Jacob Stallings (COL)

Cleveland Guardians +130 @ New York Yankees -154

Game Total: 8.5 | Starting Pitchers: Matthew Boyd (L) vs. Luis Gil (R)

Temps in the high 60s with winds blowing out to right at 10 mph.

Luis Gil has been very good against righties and has struggled against lefties who don’t strike out over his last several starts. Gil has allowed 3+ ER in three of his last five outings, with the main struggles coming against teams that have started to stack lefties against him. Unfortunately for the Guardians, they aren’t full clicking against right-handed pitching, but they still do have Jose Ramirez and Josh Naylor hitting this handedness well. From there, this spot dries up really fast, but I’m not expecting Gil to put up massive fantasy numbers.

The Yankees are tied with the Royals and Dodgers for the 2nd-highest team total on Tuesday’s card (4.8 runs). They’ll face off against Matthew Boyd, a southpaw that is making his second start of the 2024 season. Boyd was able to throw 80 pitches in 5 ⅓ innings against the Cubs that resulted in a no decision (6 K / 1 ER), so we should see Boyd at 100% this evening in terms of workload.  Dating back to 2023, we know that Boyd can handle left-handed hitters and struggles against right-handed hitters that he can’t strike out. Gleyber Torres, Aaron Judge, and Juan Soto are the standout bats against left-handed pitching on the Bronx Bombers over the last month, and with the tough Cleveland bullpen looming in a playoff-type atmosphere, I’m getting less and less interested in this Yankees offense as I type this. Boyd has done very well historically in a relatively small sample size against this projected lineup (5/20 with one extra-base hit that came from DJ LeMahieu, Judge has walked five times). 

 Home Run Leans: Jose Ramirez (CLE) and Aaron Judge (NYY) are default leans, but they aren’t strong takes

Cincinnati Reds +122 @ Toronto Blue Jays -144

Game Total: 8.5 | Starting Pitchers: Carson Spiers (R) vs. Jose Berrios (R)  

Jose Berrios had allowed 2+ ER in five-straight starts before having a dominating performance against the Angels in his last outing. Just like last night, I do think that this Reds team is just too solid against right-handed pitching for a starter to do well enough on the Blue Jays side. While Berrios doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses to either side of the plate, he is still allowed hard contact 51% of the time, so we should just look at the best players on this Reds team against righties. TJ Friedl has three homers in his last five games while Ty France has six hits in the last five games with a homer and two doubles.  Elly De La Cruz is just 2/19 in his last five games, so we’ll most likely wait til he gets back on track to sweat that out. The Reds should be able to put up additional offense against a Blue Jays bullpen that has the worst xFIP in baseball over the last month (4.92). 

We expect Carson Spiers to pitch in some form today, but we aren’t sure if he’s going to be the actual starter for the Reds or if he’s going to follow an opener in a bullpen situation. Unfortunately, we’ll just need to wait for news regarding this situation to have any idea on how to tackle this. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the default option on the Blue Jays while Will Wagner, Spencer Horwitz, and Addison Barger are all lefties that could do well against Spiers.

Home Run Leans: none

Baltimore Orioles +100 @ New York Mets -118

Game Total: 8 | Starting Pitchers: Dean Kremer (R) vs. Jose Quintana (L)  

Temps in the high 60s with winds blowing left to right across the field at 12-15 mph.

We saw the Orioles swing and miss a ton last night against David Peterson on Monday night and should expect relatively similar things to happen tonight with Jose Quintana. The Mets southpaw has recorded 5+ strikeouts in three of his last five outings despite giving up 5 ER in his last start to the Mariners. The same bats are in play on this side for the Orioles – Austin Slater, Anthony Santander, and Ramon Urias all come with strikeout risk but are nice power hitters in this situation. Gunnar Henderson and Jackson Holliday are lefties with power numbers against opposing lefties and don’t carry the same strikeout risk those righties do. I’m expecting Quintana to get his strikeouts, but also give up more damage than Peterson did last night. Henderson, Santander, Ramon Urias and Slater are the preferred offensive options (Gunnar has a home run in four of his last six games).

Dean Kremer has been very good against lefties despite a decently high walk rate (11.9% vs. LHB) and has shown a few weaknesses to righties (ground ball is 10% lower to righties, strikeout rate is just 11% to righties). Kremer has given up 3+ ER in four of his last five starts and can be exploited by right-handed hitters in this Mets lineup. Mark Vientos remains the hottest hitter on this Mets team and now has a hit in 7-straight games. Francisco Lindor saw his hitting streak come to an end last night but was still able to reach base with a walk and steal a bag in the process. There aren’t too many strong leans in this game due to the spots just not lining up quite right for either offense despite some pitching red flags.

Home Run Leans: Mark Vientos (NYM)

Read the rest of this evening’s MLB Rundown at the link below!