The Prop Bet to Take in Cubs vs Pirates | July 24
Rav dives into a pitcher prop for an important NL Central series clash with playoff implications between the Cubs and Pirates
Rav
CFB + NBA
Cubs at Pirates tonight, PNC Park, 6:40 ET. People are calling it the biggest six-game homestand for the Pirates in the last ten years with the Bucs facing the D-Backs to begin next week. Matthew Boyd on the mound against Jared Jones with playoff implications all over the place and a packed park expected in Pittsburgh tonight.
Boyd is 35, came off the IL on June 25, and the Cubs have handled him carefully ever since. His last five starts: 4.2 innings on 76 pitches, 5.0 innings on 76 pitches, then three straight starts of 6.0, 6.1, and 6.0 innings on 91, 92, and 93 pitches. He wasn't laboring in any of them. He just hit a number and Chicago pulled him. Zoom out further: 10 starts, 52.0 innings this season. That's 5.2 innings a start, or 15.6 outs a start. Tonight's line is sitting around 16.5. His own season average doesn't even clear it.
The lineup he's walking into isn't a pushover either. Pittsburgh has scored 543 runs this year, 2nd most in baseball, and they've done it without Oneil Cruz, Spencer Horwitz, or Konnor Griffin for stretches. The Pirates struggled to beat lefties mightly to start the season (they're only 9-20 in games started by a lefty this year), but have started to crack the code with different lineups and new pieces added, including SS Jacob Gonzalez. Starting lefties vs the Pirates have gone under their pitching outs line in 4 of their last five games. That includes starters Foster Griffin, Robert Gasser, Joey Cantillo and Ryan Weathers. Is old, washed up Matthew Boyd that much better than any of those guys?
Reynolds is running a .391 OBP. Gonzales is hitting .313. As a team they've drawn 382 walks, a .339 OBP. That's a lineup built to grind pitch counts, not a free-swinging one that hands out quick outs.
Furthermore, the books are expecting the same, setting his pitching outs line at 16.5 juiced to the under heavily on blue book (-130), green book, (-120), and even the shitty purple book (-120).
A pitcher capped at the same pitch count three starts running. A guy averaging under the line for the whole season. Books are leaning towards him struggling. A lineup that is seeing lefties well recently and grinds counts even when it isn't squaring him up. It's the Under for me tonight.
