June 22nd / #979-980 / 7:05pm ET / 4:05pm PT WASHINGTON NATIONALS (Corbin) @ BALTIMORE ORIOLES (Wells)
2** Play on: OVER THE TOTAL
Our Totals Team has us searching the database for the WEDNESDAY Major League Baseball game with the best ‘OVER the Total’ potential. We believe we have found it in one of the 11 NIGHT games. In this case, Game Two of the Interleague series between close rivals WASHINGTON and BALTIMORE. We could very well see some of the ‘wet stuff’ in this one as well, as the forecast is for a pretty high percentage of rain. We won’t let that bother us. And at the very least… a rain delay or two could very well throw off the rhythm and routine of both starting pitchers. We’re already talking about two of the worst starting pitcher staffs in all of Baseball. Throw in the fact that we have a top-notch OVER Umpire, and we’ll gladly play for both teams to score OVER 9.0 runs.
Washington will be bringing lefty Patrick Corbin to the table tonight. In 14 games, he has only FOUR Quality Starts… and a HIGH ERA of 6.59. Even worse than that, his ERA on the ROAD is a piss-poor 7.47. Since May 15th (7 starts), Corbin has started to give up a lot of ‘Dongs’ as well. In that 7-start stretch covering 37 innings, Corbin has allowed NINE home runs and has an ERA of 7.05. All indicators suggest another big-time BLOW UP on Wednesday in Baltimore. The host Orioles counter with righty Tyler Wells. Yes, he has better overall year-to-date numbers than his counterpart. But he’s not pitching well enough for us to consider passing in this one. Not only that, but Baltimore has been supplying Wells with a LOTS of offensive run support as of late. After struggling to score behind him in the first month of the season, the Orioles have now averaged 6.5 runs per game on offense in Wells’ last six starts. So it’s no surprise that he has gone 4-1-1 O/U in those six starts (and 3-0 O/U in his last three).
Sealing the deal for us, and elevating the rating of this play slightly is a look at tonight’s ‘Man in Blue’. Schedule to work Game Two of this Interleague series will be MIKE MUCHLINSKI. He comes in as one of the top OVER Umpires in all of Baseball for the 2022 season. Muchlinski checks in with a year-to-date record of 9-3-1 O/U (75% Overs) in his 13 games thus far. That puts him in the Top 5, with the others being Tichenor, Segal, Marquez, and Nelson. Muchlinski is also one of only nine Umpires (out of 73 guys) that’s averaging 10.4 or more runs per game on the year. Also contributing to his HIGH ‘Over’ percentage is the fact that hers ranked high in WALKS per game (7.2) and low in STRIKEOUTS per game (only 16.8). After starting the season with a 1-1 O/U record, Muchlinski has gone 8-2-1 O/U in his last ten games. In his career, his BEST ‘Over’ results have just happened to be in INTERLEAGUE games as well. 1-0 O/U this year (11.0 runs per game)… 6-2 O/U last 2 years (10.3 rpg)… 9-3-1 O/U last 3 years (11.8 rpg)… and 14-5-1 O/U last 5 years (11.7 rpg).