On Sunday, the Washington Nationals hit four consecutive home runs, quickly turning a 1-1 game in the 8th inning into a complete rout:
The Nationals hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers 😱 pic.twitter.com/4KLWZFDqoR
— Baseball Bros (@BaseballBros) June 9, 2019
Astros rookie Yordan Alvarez (MLB Pipeline's No. 23 overall prospect), made some noise of his own with a moonshot in his first career game:
Didn’t take long for Yordan Alvarez to go yard. pic.twitter.com/rtBNPVT98L
— MLB (@MLB) June 9, 2019
The Astros are currently without Jose Altuve and George Springer, but they are loaded with prospect depth.
Alvarez, a 21-year old Cuban listed at 6-foot-5, 225 pounds, was hitting .343/.443/.742 (1.184 OPS) at Triple-A this season with 23 home runs in 56 games.
Outfielder Kyle Tucker (22-years-old, No. 12 per MLB pipeline) has an OPS over 1.150 with 16 home runs and 10 steals in 35 games since the start of May. He can't even make the Astros major league roster at present.
Houston is an offensive juggernaut, and it has more than enough young pieces to trade for additional pitching reinforcements.
Recapping Yesterday's MLB Model
At writing yesterday, the model would have gone 1-7 against full-game moneylines, and 3-2-1 against first-five innings moneylines (F5).
My tracked plays went 4-4 and I finished down 0.24 units for the day.
It was a mixed day in terms of generating Closing Line Value (CLV). Overall, I gained 23 cents against moneylines and spreads.
MLB Betting Model for Monday, June 10
All odds as of Monday morning (view live MLB odds). Stay tuned on Twitter or follow me in The Action Network App for my entire betting card for Monday June 10.
The model recommends five full-game moneylines and two moneylines for the first-five innings (F5) on Monday.
As of writing, the 3.5% trigger threshold officially marked the Angels, Marlins, Mets, Rangers, and White Sox as full-game plays. It also likes the Angels and Marlins as F5 plays.
Of those potential plays, I'm only particularly interested in backing the Angels. I also took the Chicago Cubs at a 3% edge in Colorado. Both underdogs have taken sharp action in this small slate, and each align with my projection.
Yu Darvish and German Marquez met on June 5 in Chicago, with the Cubs winning a 9-8 thriller after scoring eight runs off Marquez.
Though his strikeout rate has declined over last season (28% to 23.5%), Marquez's FIP is identical to 2018 (3.40) due to improved command (5% walk rate down from 7%). He's an above average pitcher, but hasn't maintained that Cy Young-caliber stuff that he showed down the stretch in 2018.
Since May 15, Darvish has carried a 3.38 FIP and 3.49 xFIP, with an 18.4% K-BB rate. Marquez is at 18.7% K-BB for the season.
Darvish started throwing his cutter more frequently on May 15, and he has thrown the pitch at least 35% of the time in every start since.
In that last outing against the Rockies he threw the cutter for nearly half of his pitches (46%), while generating his highest swinging strike rate of the season (16.8%).
Yu Darvish, Ridiculously Filthy 89mph Cutter. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/5aESpA1eR8
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 26, 2017
On a per pitch basis, Darvish has the third best cutter in major league baseball this season, behind Minnesota's Jake Odorizzi and Martin Perez.
Few pitchers have performed better in 2019 than the Dodgers Hyun-Jin Ryu. The 32-year-old South Korean, who hasn't pitched more than 125 innings in a season since 2014 due to long list of injuries, is 9-1 with a 1.35 ERA.
The lefty has only walked five batters in 80 innings, pitching to a 2.53 FIP and 2.92 xFIP. These are incredible numbers, but his good fortune is also due to run out at some point.
Ryu has stranded 93.3% of the runners who have reached base (career 78.8%) and his .239 BABIP should regress towards his career .295 mark
The Angels' Griffin Canning has also out-pitched his own FIP and xFIP, but he owns an impressive 20.5% strikeout minus walk rate and his 15.5% swinging strike rate points to additional strikeout upside.
Both Canning's slider and curveball have displayed positive pitch value:
"Does Griffin Canning have a good breaking ball?"
Yes. Yes he does. pic.twitter.com/oH0vL8AVaK
— Pitcher List (@PitcherList) May 1, 2019
The Angels have been taking sharp action and make for a solid home underdog to back on Monday.
Additionally, I played Under 9 runs in this first game of the Freeway Series; with my projection closer to 8.0.
Bets (So Far) for June 10
- Chicago Cubs (+115) Game Moneyline
- Los Angeles Angels (+150) Game Moneyline
- Under 9.5 (-110), NY Mets at NY Yankees
- Under 10 (-120), Pittsburgh at Atlanta
- Under 9 (-110), LA Dodgers at LA Angels
- F5 Under 5 (-115), Oakland at Tampa Bay
- F5 Over 4.5 (-105), St. Louis at Miami
Stay tuned on Twitter or follow me in The Action Network App for my entire betting card for Monday, June 10.
Zerillo's Full MLB Model, 6/10
Download the Excel doc with my projections to input odds from your sportsbook. These projections cover the full game and First 5 moneylines and over/unders. A sample of one of the sheets is below.
