Friday MLB Odds & Picks: Phillies vs. Mets Preview (Sept. 4)

Phillies vs. Mets Betting Odds

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We’re heading towards what should be an amazing final stretch of Major League Baseball. For this season only, the MLB playoffs will include not only the second-best team in each division, but also the two (Wild Card) teams from each conference with the best remaining records after the division winners and second place teams.

All in all, 16 MLB teams will qualify for October baseball. That means a team like the Mets — at 17-21 and six games out of first place — still have a realistic chance against at the postseason as they’re just two games behind for the final Wild Card spot.

That makes tonight’s Mets game with the Philadelphia Phillies all the more intriguing. The Mets have only faced Philadelphia once this season and it resulted in a three-game sweep at the hands of the Phillies. Tonight, they’ll look to return the favor back to their division rivals.

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Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies trailed the Washington Nationals yesterday by one run in the seventh inning after squandering two two-run leads earlier in the ballgame. They managed to tie the game with a run in the eighth before walking it off on an Alec Bohm sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 10th inning. That win gave the Phillies a four-game sweep of the Nationals and a 9-1 record in their last 10 games. Jake Arrieta will take the ball tonight with hopes of extending that streak to five games against the Mets tonight.

Arrieta is 2-4 on the season with a 6.49 ERA and 1.56 WHIP. In his six starts this season, he’s completed six innings just once and failed to make it out of the second inning his last start after allowing seven runs on three walks in a 12-10 loss to Atlanta.

Batters are hitting .307 against him and .342 when balls are put in to play. His 4.88 FIP, which is lower than his ERA, suggests he’s been a bit unlucky with some of the runs allowed, but I’m not sure I’m buying it. Arrieta’s biggest problem is that he’s walking 3.42 hitters per nine innings.

That’s creating more runners on base and he’s only been able to strand about 62% of them. Tonight, he’ll face a Mets team that leads all of baseball with a .351 OBP and is in the top-half of the league with a 9.2% walk rate.

New York Mets

Like the Phillies, the Mets also needed a walk-off hit in the 10th inning to win their game yesterday. First baseman Pete Alonso hit a two-run shot that gave the Mets a 9-7 victory over the New York Yankees. The Mets rallied from a 4-0 and 7-4 deficit to tie the game and force it to extra innings before Alonso connected on his eighth home run of the season. Met fans will hope that feeling of euphoria extends into tonight’s matchup.

Rick Porcello will get the ball for the Mets in the opening game of their four-game series with the Philadelphia Phillies. Porcello is just 1-4 on the season with a 6.00 ERA and 1.58 WHIP.

As bad as his numbers look, he is a pitcher who has been extremely unlucky this season. Porcello carries a 3.10 FIP which is almost half his ERA. His walks per nine innings is only 2.18 and his HR/9 is 0.55. He even has a 7.36 K/9 ratio.

Unfortunately for Porcello, batters are hitting .321 against him but that number jumps to .389 on balls put in to play. Porcello’s problem has often come with cheap hits with the bases empty and then his struggles really begin once runners get on base and in scoring position. With men on base, batters have .354 / .400 / .492 slash line against him and when in scoring position it’s .378 / .439 / .568. He’ll hope for a better result against a Phillies lineup that is hitting just .218 against him with a .275 OBP in 142 at-bats.

Betting Analysis

Normally, I wouldn’t go near these pitchers, but I’ve got to think that Porcello’s numbers at some point will start to balance out. Maybe he needs a little bit longer than the sixty game season, but an FIP that’s nearly half his ERA is really something that draws my attention. When you add that with the Phillies struggles at the plate when facing him, I think there’s even more value on the home side in this spot.

I was able to do a few queries on Arrieta and the Phillies in this situational spot.

Against the Mets, Arrieta’s teams are 2-7 in his last nine games for a loss of 7.18 units.

Also, when they’ve won four consecutive games, Philadelphia has struggled of late to keep their streak alive. Since 2019, Philadelphia is just 1-6 for a loss of 6.53 units when trying to extend their winning streak to five games.

FanDuel is offering them at -130 tonight and that’s good enough to get me to the window. I’ll take the Mets for a half-unit and hope they play the role of streak-stopper tonight  against the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Bet: Mets Moneyline -130 (play up to -140, risking half a unit)

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