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MLB Pick for Friday: Rays to Shine as Pups in Pittsburgh
We are 1-2 in MLB with our write-ups after our very unlucky loser Wednesday with the Mariners blowing a 6-2 lead in the ninth inning. We are looking to bounce back on Friday with a play on Rays vs. Pirates in Pittsburgh.
Tampa Bay Rays vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Friday, April 17th – 6:45pm ET
We think we found a nice overlay in the Steel City on Friday. We are backing Nick Martinez and the Rays as underdogs when they visit Bubba Chandler and the Pirates in Pittsburgh.
Lots of Walks and Hard Air Contact
Frankly, we do not quite understand why the Pirates are favored in the -130s here against a good Rays team that leads the AL East by 1.5 games early on. Their starter Chandler is 0-1 through three starts, and do not get fooled by his decent 3.86 ERA. That is because his xFIP stands at 5.51, primarily due to a very weak command ratio.
Yes, Bubba is averaging exactly one strikeout per inning with the K-Rate at 9.00/9, but that gets offset by an ugly walk rate of 7.71/9. Remember that Chandler struggled with walks at every minor league level including 4.77/9 in Triple-A last season, so these control issues are nothing new.
Even more distressing is having one of the worst soft/hard contact ratios in baseball at an atrocious 8.1% / 48.6%, and most of the hard contact has been in the air with his groundball rate at only 36.1%. He has pitched around all that traffic and hard-hit balls with a lucky BABIP of .229, which does not figure to continue. And he must now deal with a Tampa Bay offense ranked seventh in MLB in wRC+ against right-handed pitching at 115 (or 15% above average).
Martinez Quietly Solid
Martinez has yet to get a decision in three starts in his first season with Rays covering 16.2 innings while posting a nice 2.16 ERA. Now, we concede that Martinez, like Chandler, is not as good as his ERA either, but at least he has been quietly solid since returning to the Major Leagues in 2022 after pitching the prior two years in Japan.
He posted ERAs in the 3.00s in three of his four seasons since his return, as well as three seasons with an xFIP of 4.04 or better. And even in the one outlying year where he posted a 4.54 xFIP, that is still nearly a full run better than Chandler’s xFIP this season. Also, he has yet to have a bad outing for the Rays allowing one run twice and two runs on the other occasion.
Yes, Nick is also in line for negative regression based on his current 4.47 xFIP and scoring highly in the Luck Stats himself, but at the very least, that makes this a relatively even pitching matchup although we personally rate Martinez better.
Our model actually has the Rays as a scant 51% favorite here (-104), so we are betting on Tampa Bay as around a +120 pup in this spot.
THE PICK
Rays +121 at Heritage
We are 1-2 in MLB with our write-ups after our very unlucky loser Wednesday with the Mariners blowing a 6-2 lead in the ninth inning. We are looking to bounce back on Friday with a play on Rays vs. Pirates in Pittsburgh.
Tampa Bay Rays vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Friday, April 17th – 6:45pm ET
We think we found a nice overlay in the Steel City on Friday. We are backing Nick Martinez and the Rays as underdogs when they visit Bubba Chandler and the Pirates in Pittsburgh.
Lots of Walks and Hard Air Contact
Frankly, we do not quite understand why the Pirates are favored in the -130s here against a good Rays team that leads the AL East by 1.5 games early on. Their starter Chandler is 0-1 through three starts, and do not get fooled by his decent 3.86 ERA. That is because his xFIP stands at 5.51, primarily due to a very weak command ratio.
Yes, Bubba is averaging exactly one strikeout per inning with the K-Rate at 9.00/9, but that gets offset by an ugly walk rate of 7.71/9. Remember that Chandler struggled with walks at every minor league level including 4.77/9 in Triple-A last season, so these control issues are nothing new.
Even more distressing is having one of the worst soft/hard contact ratios in baseball at an atrocious 8.1% / 48.6%, and most of the hard contact has been in the air with his groundball rate at only 36.1%. He has pitched around all that traffic and hard-hit balls with a lucky BABIP of .229, which does not figure to continue. And he must now deal with a Tampa Bay offense ranked seventh in MLB in wRC+ against right-handed pitching at 115 (or 15% above average).
Martinez Quietly Solid
Martinez has yet to get a decision in three starts in his first season with Rays covering 16.2 innings while posting a nice 2.16 ERA. Now, we concede that Martinez, like Chandler, is not as good as his ERA either, but at least he has been quietly solid since returning to the Major Leagues in 2022 after pitching the prior two years in Japan.
He posted ERAs in the 3.00s in three of his four seasons since his return, as well as three seasons with an xFIP of 4.04 or better. And even in the one outlying year where he posted a 4.54 xFIP, that is still nearly a full run better than Chandler’s xFIP this season. Also, he has yet to have a bad outing for the Rays allowing one run twice and two runs on the other occasion.
Yes, Nick is also in line for negative regression based on his current 4.47 xFIP and scoring highly in the Luck Stats himself, but at the very least, that makes this a relatively even pitching matchup although we personally rate Martinez better.
Our model actually has the Rays as a scant 51% favorite here (-104), so we are betting on Tampa Bay as around a +120 pup in this spot.
THE PICK
Rays +121 at Heritage
