Ten games on the Monday board, but most of them never got close to the card.
We ended up concentrated in three games with four sides and one strikeout prop. The biggest bet of the night is in St. Louis, where we are backing the home dog with 1.5 units to win.
Play One: Mets ML
I kept coming back to this one because I think New York has the better starting pitcher, the better matchup at the plate, and somehow we are still getting +123.
Bryce Elder has been getting away with it for a while. The ERA and recent box scores are fine. The contact underneath them is not. His expected numbers have been worse than his actual results for most of the season, and eventually hard contact stops finding gloves.
The Mets are also the wrong lineup to keep testing that theory against.
Current New York hitters own a .339 average and .421 wOBA against Elder. Francisco Lindor has absolutely crushed him. There are certain pitcher-lineup matchups where the history is too loud to ignore, and this is one of them.
Christian Scott gives us the other side of it. Atlanta's current roster has struck out in 33.9 percent of its career plate appearances against him while hitting under .180. The Braves are still a lineup that will chase, and Scott has exactly the type of stuff that can make that a problem.
Better starter. Better matchup. Plus money.
Give me the Mets.
Play Two: Christian Scott 6+ Strikeouts
This is the smaller companion bet to the Mets moneyline.
The number is six.
Scott has struck out 33.9 percent of the current Atlanta roster in their previous meetings, and the Braves still have enough swing-and-miss in this lineup to give him a path there quickly.
We do not need a masterpiece. We need six punchouts.
If the Mets side plays out the way I think it does, Scott is pitching into the sixth with a chance to get into the seventh. At that point, six should be very much in play.
Half a unit and we ride the same matchup twice.
Play Three: Cardinals ML
This is the biggest bet on the card.
St. Louis at home. Basically even money. A Phillies starter on a short leash. Heat pushing 95 degrees. A Philadelphia bullpen I want absolutely no part of laying a price with.
That is enough to get my attention.
Andrew Painter's stuff is not the issue. He can be electric. The problem is how the Phillies are using him.
Painter was pulled in the fourth inning of his last start, and Philadelphia has made it pretty clear that they are not interested in stretching him deep into games yet. That matters a lot tonight because the innings behind him are where this matchup starts to turn.
If Painter gives them four or five, the Cardinals should get multiple innings against the middle of a Phillies bullpen that has been leaking games for weeks.
And Busch is not going to play like normal Busch tonight.
It is expected to be around 95 degrees at first pitch, and this park changes when the temperature gets that high. The ball carries better, and that gives a St. Louis lineup already swinging it well another boost.
Jordan Walker has been right in the middle of it. He is coming off a 432-foot homer Saturday and has been one of the hottest bats in the National League since winning the Home Run Derby in this same park three weeks ago.
Hunter Dobbins does not need to dominate this game. He just needs to keep St. Louis attached long enough for the matchup to flip toward the bullpens.
At +101, I think the wrong team is favored.
That is why this one gets 1.5 units.
Play Four: Giants ML
There is not much separating these two teams tonight, which makes +123 on San Francisco at home pretty easy for me to get interested in.
Hayden Wesneski has thrown 78 and 79 pitches in his two starts since moving into Houston's rotation.
That tells us plenty.
Houston is managing him, and unless something changes tonight, this game probably reaches the Astros bullpen earlier than you would like when laying road chalk.
There is also some encouraging history for San Francisco against Wesneski. The sample is small, so I am not building the bet around it, but Giants hitters who have seen him have hit the ball hard.
Blade Tidwell's assignment is pretty simple. Keep the Giants in the game.
Oracle Park gives him some margin for error, especially at night. Houston still does a lot of its damage with power, and this is one of the least friendly places in baseball to try to win that way.
I do not think San Francisco is dramatically better here.
I also do not think they need to be.
This looks much closer to a coin flip than a +123 home dog.
I will take the extra price.
Play Five: Astros-Giants Under 8.5
Same game. Same idea. Smaller bet.
Oracle at night is still Oracle at night.
Home runs die here. Deep fly balls turn into outs. Mistakes that leave the yard in half the league tend to stay playable.
Neither starter is a huge walk problem, both lineups give pitchers some strikeout upside, and the park should do its part.
The concern is obviously getting into two bullpens earlier than usual, especially with Wesneski's pitch count.
That is why this is only half a unit.
But with 8.5 to work with, I still think the environment gives us enough room.
Nine beats us.
I think we stay underneath it.
What I'm Tracking
The Red Sox bet we walked away from.
Boston at Toronto was probably the first game I circled this morning.
Sonny Gray had the cleaner profile, Jameson Taillon allows some of the loudest contact on tonight's board, and Boston first five looked like it might end up as one of the better bets of the day.
Then I got into the actual hitter history.
Toronto's current roster owns a .357 wOBA against Gray across 138 plate appearances. Boston's current hitters have a .235 wOBA against Taillon in 62.
That does not automatically mean the matchup flips, but it was enough contradiction to make me stop trying to force it.
Sometimes the best bet is the one you cross off.
Reid Detmers against Texas.
This one is going in the notebook.
Detmers has struck out 37 percent of the current Rangers roster in their career meetings.
That is a ridiculous number, and exactly the kind of pitcher-lineup history I want to keep watching over the next few weeks.
Michael Soroka's pitch count.
Soroka makes his first major-league start in almost two months tonight for Arizona after only one short rehab appearance.
That matters more to me than trying to split hairs over the matchup itself.
Pitchers coming off that kind of layoff usually do not get turned loose for 100 pitches. If Soroka is capped around four or five innings, you are handicapping a bullpen game almost as much as a starting pitcher matchup.
The heat.
It is another oven across the middle of the country.
That matters.
The hotter the air gets, the better the ball carries, and totals that look normal in the morning can play very differently by first pitch.
St. Louis is the game where I think it matters most tonight.
Today's Card
| Play | Odds | Risk | To Win | First Pitch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mets ML | +123 | 0.81u | 1.00u | 7:15 ET |
| Scott 6+ Ks | -104 | 0.52u | 0.50u | 7:15 ET |
| Cardinals ML | +101 | 1.49u | 1.50u | 7:45 ET |
| Giants ML | +123 | 0.81u | 1.00u | 9:45 ET |
| HOU-SF Under 8.5 | -121 | 0.61u | 0.50u | 9:45 ET |
Total: 4.24 units of risk to win 4.50 units
Five plays. Three games.
A road dog where I think the pitching matchup is backwards, two bets tied to Christian Scott, the biggest position of the night on St. Louis, and a late-night Giants game where we are backing both the home dog and the park.
No need to manufacture action on a ten game board.
These are the five that made the cut.
Let's get to the window.