Our MLB Expert, Billy J (+0.95 Units), gives his best bets for tonight’s game!
The Reds are rolling as of late and looking to win the first three games of the series against the Diamondbacks today. In the first 2 games of the series Reds starting pitching has dominated. Hunter Green was electric on Monday throwing 7 shutout innings with 1 hit and 8 strikeouts. Looking at yesterday’s final score you would think the Reds starter might have gotten tagged, but that was not the case as Graham Ashcraft added another quality start to his resume and picked up his third win in his three trips to the mound so far this year.
This now brings us to today’s starter Mike Minor who is tasked with keeping the baton for the stellar Reds starting pitching in this series. Minor will be just making his second start of the year. His first start against the Nationals did not go as planned as he was chased after 4 innings yielding five earned runs. He is opposed today by Merrill Kelly who boasts a very serviceable 3.66 ERA. Kelly, however, has had trouble getting into the late innings in his last few starts. The last 3 starts alone he is gone exactly 5 innings in each start. This doesn’t attribute to previous years where traditionally a pitcher in the NL would get taken out of the game for a pinch hitter. Kelly is racking up pitch counts in his recent starts and in three of his last four starts has only has struck out exactly 2 batters. Not a winning formula against a Reds team hitting very well this series. In the first two games of this series, the Reds have already racked up 28 hits and six home runs.
This game originally opened at 8.5 and quickly moved to 9.5. Looks like sharp money is being put back on the under. The Diamondbacks have been struggling to score runs as of late and pretty concerning in that their last two opponents were the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Reds. The bats did awake last night to give the Reds a potential scare when the Diamondbacks put up 8 runs in the final two innings. If that’s somewhat of a wakeup call to the lineup alongside the recent struggles of Kelly and the complete uncertainty of Minor after his less than stellar first start, I like the value here at Over 9.5 runs almost at even money.
The Pick: Over 9.5 -105 currently on DraftKings
Bonus Pick: Brandon Drury Over 0.5 homeruns +460 on FanDuel. Going to ride the recent power streak and bet that Drury goes deep three straight times in this series
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