MLB Wednesday Weather: Wind Impacting Multiple Matinees

Wednesday and Thursday = afternoon baseball. Afternoon baseball = the chance for warmer and windier conditions. Warmer and windier conditions = potentially great hitting weather.

There are a handful of afternoon games today and some of them do exhibit that lovely weather we long to see. Could be some rockets hit this afternoon …

Sky rockets in flight (boooooo), afternoon delight (woooop). AaAaAfternoon delight.

Athletics (Frankie Montas) at Indians (Jefry Rodriguez)

• 1:10 p.m. ET
• Over/Under: from 9 to 9.5
• Wind: 10 mph to left

First up, the Athletics will attempt to sweep the Indians on their own turf and will get to face arguably (definitely) Cleveland's worst starter, too.

Sure, Jefry Rodriguez touts a 3.45 ERA over 31.1 innings, but the 25-year-old righty has been getting a bit lucky. A K/9 below 6, BABIP of .255 for a ground-ball pitcher and LOB% right below 80% all scream that regression is coming.

On the flip side, Frankie Montas has been quite good and it looks like he can keep it up. He's struck out nearly one batter per inning, walked fewer than two men per nine and doesn't have any advanced stats that look especially lucky. However, like Rodriguez, Montas is a ground-baller.

Montas's 53.5% GB rate ranks seventh out of 87 qualified pitchers. Rodriguez hasn't pitched enough innings to qualify, but is not far behind at 49.5%.

As you saw in the bullet points, the wind will be blowing out to left at a fairly strong clip this afternoon. This is a fairly uncommon weather scenario at Progressive Field, as there have been 68 games there with winds blowing out to left and just 15 of those in which the wind speed was 8 mph or higher.

Per Bet Labs, the over has gone just 21-30-2 when the wind speed has averaged 7 mph or less, but 11-4 when it's been 8 or higher.

Bets are split for this game, but 75% of cash on the over has helped push the total from 9 to 9.5 since opening.

Royals (Brad Keller) at Cardinals (Michael Wacha)

• 1:15 p.m. ET
• Over/Under: from 9 to 9.5
• Wind: 14 mph to left

Take what you saw in Cleveland and pump a little steroids in it to get today's forecast in St. Louis. Not the only time we've seen roids in St. Louis, eh?

Game 1 of the Royals-Cards doubleheader will be played in great hitting conditions on a warm and windy St. Louis afternoon. Temps in the low 80s combined with strong winds blowing to left make for a Weather Rating of 71.

As was the case at Progressive Field, the strength of the wind has certainly mattered at Busch Stadium. In general, the over has gone 59-63-9 at Busch with the wind blowing to left, but 21-15-6 when it's blown at 8 mph or harder.

Unfortunately, also like the A's-Indians game, this isn't the perfect pitching matchup to exploit long-ball winds. Brad Keller has a ground-ball rate over 50% and has the fourth lowest HR/9 in the league. He does, however, have a very low K/9 and very high BB/9. There should be plenty of batted-ball opportunities for St. Louis to get one in the jet stream.

Michael Wacha is not an extreme ground ball pitcher, but tends to lean on that side. Unlike Keller, his HR/9 of 1.71 is quite exorbitant. It's also likely unsustainability high due to a high HR/FB rate, but given today's forecast, it may not be the afternoon for lowering that.

With yesterday's game being postponed, the odds for this game reopened just a short time ago with a total of 9, but quickly moved to 9.5.

Mariners (Marco Gonzales) at Rangers (Jesse Chavez)

• 2:05 p.m. ET
• Over/Under: 12
• Wind: 18 mph from right

When you have the league's two "best" over teams, you're going to see some high totals. On Tuesday, the total closed at 11. Yesterday, it closed at 11.5. Today, it may very well close at a dozen — which would be the 40th time since 2005 that a total closed at 12 or higher at somewhere other than Coors Field.

Globe Life Park is responsible for 15 of those previous occasions, with the over going 8-6-1 so far.

Though an 18-mph wind blowing in from right field may have you on the verge of hammering the under, you should think twice about that.

This is a very typical situation in Arlington, as winds blow in from right on the youszh (short for usual). Evidently, the breeze has a tough time getting past the right-field bleachers, as the over has hit at a 55% rate over a 400-game sample in these situations.

And while you would think that the harder the wind blows in, the worse the over does, you'd be wrong. In fact, the over is 93-53-11 (63.7%) with winds from right of 10+ mph.

Paired with temps in the mid 80s, we get a Weather Rating of 84 — which is just swell and dandy.

Both teams rank top 10 in home runs allowed and home runs hit. It would certainly be surprising if the bats went quiet on an afternoon like this one.