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Wednesday promises to be a great day in baseball with so many games to pick from including some afternoon affairs. Let's narrow it down to two best bets.
Toronto Blue Jays (-155) vs. Boston Red Sox (+130) Total: 9.5
Look, I know Brayan Bello hasn't exactly dominated. I mean, he has an ERA close to nine runs. With that being said, he's not been entirely that bad when you look at things in context.
Bello is inducing ground balls at a 64.4% clip which is extremely high, and while he's allowed a ton of hits his 3.98 xERA would indicate he may not continue allowing so many hits. On top of this, his 12.1 strikeouts per nine across Double-A and Triple-A this season lead me to believe the swings and misses are going to come in a big way for Bello.
Wednesday is a great spot for the rookie right-hander against a Blye Jays offense ranked eighth in ground ball rate over the course of the season and sixth for the last two weeks. Boston is 8th in wRC+ in the last seven days and will meet José Berríos, whose xSLG is in the botthm 3% of the league and his xERA in the bottom 7%.
Edge: Red Sox +130
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Milwaukee Brewers (+210) vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (-261) Total: 8.5
To me, this is a no-contest. While Andrew Heaney is a super complicated pitcher to figure out, the one thing we can really say about him is that the Dodgers have unlocked his strikeout upside considering he's sitting down over 34% of the hitters he faces. On Wednesday, that could increase to an even higher number.
Milwaukee is striking out more than 27% of the time over the last two weeks and is close to 26% against lefties. In each split, they are in the bottom three of the league, meaning this has the potential to be disastrous for the Brewers. On top of this, they're going to have to go up against a Dodgers team that just torched Corbin Burnes for seven runs.
Adrian Houser is no Burnes — he's not even close. His ERA is just a shade under five runs and he is a primarily sinker-ball pitcher going up against the top fastball hitting team in the league. L.A. will run it up here.
Edge: Dodgers -1.5