Dallas Keuchel got off to a very unusual rough start on Sunday and that blew up the free play. I’ll try and pick a winner on another AL game tonight featuring two reeling entries.
TIGERS (Sanchez) @ RAYS (Karns)
Take: RAYS -115
It’s not play out the string time just yet for the Tigers or the Rays. But it’s heading in that direction for both teams. The Tigers are missing Miguel Cabrera and they have some real pitching issues at this point. The Rays can’t hit and while the staff has mostly held together, they’ve still had a really tough time with injured arms and they’re just not very good right now.
Anibal Sanchez gets the call for Detroit tonight, and while he’s got an okay W/L ledger, Sanchez really hasn’t been pitching anywhere close to the level he’s capable of producing. A couple of the peripherals pretty much tell the story. Sanchez is throwing the fewest ground balls of his career, and his HR/FB rate is the worst of his career.
Nate Karns has been somewhat of a surprise for the Rays. He doesn’t generally work deep into games but Karns has been pretty reliable in terms of giving his team six good enough innings. Karns has put together a nice run lately, doing well in six of his last seven starts. He’s had some good fortune in that run, as he’s hardly been unhittable. But Karns has masterfully found a way to strand a very high percentage of runners and that has helped his bottom line immensely.
There should be some regression coming at some point for Karns. The innings are starting to mount and I would not be surprised to see some diminishing returns for Karns. But I’m not going to guess when that’s going to happen. The idea is to wait for the sell signal if it comes and then try to take advantage.
As for tonight, it’s kind of tough to muster support for either team. But when push comes to shove, I’ll take pitching over offense and in this instance that favors the Rays. Detroit just has that look of a dead from the neck up team and this is not uncommon for a overturn team that’s used to contending and now suddenly isn’t. There’s also a bit of an advantage from a scheduling standpoint. The Tigers were obliterated on Sunday night at Boston, and now have to travel to face a Rays team in the midst of a homestead. I’ll side with Tampa Bay to grab the series opener tonight.
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