Yankees vs. Red Sox MLB Odds, Picks, Predictions: The First 5 Innings Bet to Make (Friday, July 8)
Jim Rogash/Getty Images. Pictured: Yankees LHP Nestor Cortes
Yankees vs. Red Sox Odds
| Yankees Odds | -150 |
| Red Sox Odds | +125 |
| Over/Under | 9.5 |
| Time | 7:10 p.m. ET |
| TV | MLB.TV |
| Odds via BetMGM. Get up-to-the-minute MLB odds here. | |
The Yankees managed to escape Game 1 of this massive series with the victory. Neither starter was particularly sharp, but the Yankees' vaunted bullpen was able to take over and secure the lead.
Tonight there is a sizable mismatch on the mound. Nestor Cortes will get the ball for New York. While he had a rough month of June, he turned the page to July nicely as he dealt six innings of one-run ball against Cleveland his last time out.
Making his third start of the season for the Boston Red Sox will be Connor Seabold. His first two starts contrast entirely with one another, but the underlying numbers tell the true story.
Is Seabold ready for the big stage? Or will the Bronx Bombers take a 2-0 advantage over their arch-rivals? Let's take a closer look to find out.
Yankees Will Look to Get Score Early and Often
The Yankees have established themselves as the best team in baseball. That is shown not only through their record but in every facet of the game. We saw the strength of their bullpen in game one, and now we should see how potent their bats are this evening.
Coming into tonight, New York leads the majors in OPS, ISO, and wRC+. They make a ton of hard contact and have a lineup that features some of the best power hitters in the game. Right in the middle of it all is AL MVP candidate Aaron Judge. Judge is hitting .287 with 30 homers and 64 RBI.
He and the rest of the lineup will get to feast on Connor Seabold, who got shelled in his first outing of the year as he gave up seven runs on three homers and nine hits overall to Toronto. However, his next start was much better against the Cubs. He held them to just one run on six hits over four innings of work.
Given that the Yankees lineup is much closer, if not better than Toronto's, than it is to the Cubs, we should expect them to get to Seabold.
Expect Cortes to Contain Red Hot Sox
Boston entered the season with tempered expectations as they had plenty of talent, but there were plenty of question marks surrounding the club. However, the Red Sox have out-hit those expectations, literally. Boston leads the majors in batting average. In addition, their stout lineup has propped them into the playoff picture despite the injuries to their pitching staff.
Although, tonight, they'll face Nestor Cortes. As I alluded to in the open, Cortes had a rough month of June, but he was due for some regression, and it's time to find out who he really is. Despite his struggles, he's still elite in plenty of categories. Cortes ranks in the top 20 percent of all qualified pitchers in each expected statistic. That is due to his ability to miss barrels. He'll use his cutter and slider to both lefties and righties. However, it's the cutter that has been key to his success.
Opponents have hit just .174 off of Cortes' cutter, and we should see a lot of it against these Boston bats. He needs to work the glove side of the plate so that he can jam the lefties such as Rafael Devers and Franchy Cordero, as well as stay away from the righties like J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts, and Trevor Story.
Boston's lineup has been so hot of late that expectations need to be tempered, but given the support Cortes will get from the Yankees bats, our angle should be in good shape if he can hold them to two runs at most.
Yankees-Red Sox Pick
The Yankees have the starting pitching edge, which will impact the game in more ways than one. The biggest is that the top of their order should mash Seabold. He's allowed a ton of solid contact, and this is the lineup that will make pitchers pay for mistakes.
On the other side, Cortes has the stuff to stifle the Red Sox offensively. If he has command of his cutter, we will see a lot of quick outs and soft contact. All of that leads me to take the Yankees to be up halfway through this one.
Pick: Yankees F5 ML (-140)
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