Red Sox vs. Yankees Sunday Night Baseball Preview and Free Pick (Archive)
The New York Yankees already won the first series against the Boston Red Sox. New York just won the first two games of the three-game series and now has bragging rights, at least for the time being. But it’s very early in the season and there’s still plenty of baseball to be played. Bragging rights don’t matter. A win tonight would be the only thing to worry about at this point.
Despite the Yankees winning the first season series, can the Red Sox at least salvage one game of the three to add momentum into Monday and beyond? Below, we’ll break down the MLB odds and share a winning pick. Let’s begin.
Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees
Sunday, April 10, 2022 – 07:08 PM EDT at Yankee Stadium
The Red Sox will send out Tanner Houck who is projected to be the next Chris Sale. The right-handed pitcher had a 3.21 xFIP last season with 30% strikeouts and 6.5% walks. He also induced 48.5% ground balls and gave up under 20% line drives last season in over 320 plate appearances.
Lefties hit a wOBA of .296 while righties hit a wOBA of .238. Plus, power was hard to come by against Houck, who allowed an ISO of .132 to lefties and a .089 ISO to righties.
The Lineups
The Yankees lineup has been fine for now. Aaron Judge will test the market next season but he’s still got to perform to get a bigger contract. Using the projected lineup and its stats from last season, the Yankees had an ISO of .182 and a wOBA of .326 against righties last season. The projected lineup also struck out 22.7% of the time but walked 11% of the time.
On the other hand, the Yankees will send out Jordan Montgomery, a left-handed pitcher who surprised some last season. He had an xFIP of 4.15 with 24.7% strikeouts and 7.3% walks, which were both above-average numbers in the MLB.
Lefties were really bad against Montgomery, as he held lefties to a .238 wOBA and an ISO of .079. However, righties had a little more success with a wOBA of .313 and an ISO of .140.
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Overall, Montgomery did a great job limiting damage last year with nearly 45% ground balls and just 22.1% line-drive contact. The Red Sox figure to have a mostly right-handed lineup against Montgomery. That would mean potentially keeping Alex Verdugo out of the lineup along with Jackie Bradley Jr. Rafael Devers could be the only left-hander in the lineup for the Red Sox.
If the Red Sox have more lefties in the lineup, things are going to get easier for Montgomery. Bradley Jr. had .079 ISO with a wOBA of .249 against lefties and Alex Verdugo had a .059 ISO with a wOBA of .249 against lefties last season.
Prediction
Both teams figure to have solid pitching matchups for tonight's game. Houck has so much potential and is able to limit line drives while earning plenty of ground balls and strikeouts. He also limits walks which is something the Yankees have success earning against righties.
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On the other hand, Montgomery is also above the average in many categories and has experience against the Red Sox in the past as well. The more lefties that see the diamond for the Red Sox, the better for the under. For my MLB picks, I’ll take the under in this game in the first five innings.
MLB Pick: Under 5 First Five (-120) with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.