After passing yesterday our MLB plays are being made available to extended service clients only. We have posted what we feel is a strong NBA Playoff release for individual sale. Join us on Tuesday as we build on our 2013 NBA Playoffs of 60% Side Selections.
923 NY Yankees at Boston
Great pitching will be on display Tuesday night at Fenway Park when Masahiro Tanaka makes his debut against the Red Sox and Jon Lester makes his 28th career start against the Pinstripes.
Masahiro Tanaka has definitely come as advertised for the Yankees. Through three starts, he has 28 strikeouts against just two walks. His elite control was one of the major selling points and he has carried that over to the big leagues. He's also missing barrels and inducing a lot of ground balls with his splitter. Four of the five earned runs off of Tanaka have come on home runs, so teams aren't exactly stringing hits together to create innings. The usually powerful Red Sox have hit just 17 home runs so far and with Tanaka's elite command and control, it's unlikely that number will go up very much.
Most importantly for the Yankees, Tanaka works deep into games to keep their mediocre bullpen out of the game. That will be a factor in this one because the Red Sox work counts, but they have yet to see Tanaka and that plays to his advantage because of his ability to spot pitches.
Jon Lester has been excellent so far this season in four starts with a 2.17 ERA and a 2.35 FIP. He's striking out over 25 percent of opposing batters with a low walk rate of 3.5 percent. By PITCHf/x data, one of the biggest changes for Lester so far has been increased use of the cutter, which is an easy pitch for him to command and has good run away from lefties and jams righties. Missing barrels is critical in Fenway Park and Lester has been good at that so far.
The Fenway Park factor and the reputation of these two teams has led to a total that is higher than it should be. In almost any other park in baseball, this total would be a 6.5, possibly a 7 with the under juiced. But we get value here, even though these two offenses aren't performing at nearly the level that they used to. We'll gladly take the extra value because of historical bias and look for a game with few baserunners and a lot of great starting pitching.
PLAY: NYY/BOS UNDER