2015 MLB Record
69 – 55 for +14.01 Units
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#1: Philadelphia Phillies +126
Can the Phillies avoid a 4-game home sweep to the 2nd worst team in the league tonight? Two factors in their favor here. First, Matt Garza has been a disaster on the road this year (and in general as he’s my 134th ranked starter). His road ERA is 6.7 with a mediocre 12% K-rate and a 4.8 xFIP. Second factor are the bullpens. Milwaukee’s pen is fairly worn our right now as a number of key relievers have logged a lot of time over the last 4 games or so. Will smith and Francisco Rodriguez (2 key guys) were off yesterday but pitched in 3 straight games prior to that, so their availability might be a question mark. Phillies’ pen is much more rested as there hasn’t been a need to use their key guys very often. The wild-card here is Billingsley who is coming off DL tonight. He made a few minor-league rehab appearances and is coming off a pretty solid outing in the last one. Hopefully he’s not a total disaster tonight. Regardless, there’s too much value with the home team in this one so I’ll make a play.
#2: San Diego Padres +109
Similar to the Brewers, Cardinals’ BP has logged a lot of time in the last 4 games and they won’t be as fresh as the Padres’ BP. In addition, a youngest in Cooney is making his 2nd MLB start (he got rocked in the first one) since Garcia is unable to go again. Cooney was pulled from his Sunday minor league start after throwing just under 30 pitches and now is expected to go 4 days later. We’ll see how he does. The good news for him is that he’s facing a light-hitting Padres lineup. The bad thing is that pretty much all the opposing hitters will be right-handed. Hopefully he doesn’t last too long and the Cards are forced to bring in their bullpen arms earlier than expected. Ross is a top-25 pitcher in my database this year so hopefully he’s ‘on’ his game tonight.
Good Luck