Locks
MLB (0.25 Unit) Texas Rangers/Minnesota Twins First 5 Innings Under 4.5 (-110): 6:10 PM CT on Bally Sports North
I’ve picked on Rangers starter Glenn Otto pretty often this season, and there are plenty of situations where he’s a great fade. But this doesn’t look like one of them, and given the overall matchup, I think we’ll see a low-scoring start tonight.
The best time to fade Otto has been at home in his hitter-friendly park, but his ERA gets cut nearly in half on the road. The Ranger righty has also been pitching extremely well lately, allowing only 5 total runs in his past 3 starts while facing a couple of tough lineups. I’m also looking for Chris Archer to bounce back today, as he faces a Rangers team that is in the bottom-third of baseball in most categories against right-handed pitching.
Neither team enters this game in particularly good form offensively either, as last night’s 2-1 game with untrustworthy pitchers going would indicate. The cooler weather in Minneapolis and a breeze blowing in at Target Field will help hold scoring down in what I see as a slow start.
MLB (0.75 Unit) St. Louis Cardinals/Arizona Diamondbacks Over 9 (-110): 7:10 PM CT on Bally Sports AZ
When you dive deep into the more complex stats for these starting pitchers and the offenses they’ll face, this game has runs written all over it.
Let’s start with those starters, and Madison Bumgarner in particular for Arizona. The old version of MadBum is gone. He’s allowed at least 5 runs in his past 4 starts. Bumgarner should also be in significant trouble tonight against a Cardinals team absolutely crushing lefty pitching right now. St. Louis has ridiculous numbers against lefties this month in the weighted runs-created plus and weighted on-base average metrics, so a team averaging 6.5 runs per game their past 11 should keep it rolling with ease.
But the Cards have their own troubled starter going tonight in Dakota Hudson, who has an expected ERA of 5.33 that puts him in the bottom 8% of all pitchers in baseball. Arizona has been strong against right-handed pitchers like Hudson, and the Snakes are actually 10th in weighted on-base average over the past month. With both pitchers getting hit as hard as they are, these offenses should be the story and send this game over the total.
Degenerates
No degenerates today.
Tiny Nick is 828-693 ATS (+76.6 Units) on his Locks since joining Zone Coverage.
Every day he will offer his Locks and Degenerate picks. Locks are the games he’s confident in. Degenerates are entertaining but riskier picks.
