Tuesday brings with it a full slate of Major League Baseball, with 15 games set to take place this evening.
As a reminder, the Payoff Pitch podcast MLB experts break down their favorite picks from the day's slate every Monday, Tuesday and Friday, including each analyst's favorite underdog on the slate, and they've got two more to recommend today.
You can read about their picks below, and be sure to subscribe to Payoff Pitch for MLB picks and predictions all season long.
Rockies vs. Guardians, 6:10 p.m. ET
Ryan Feltner vs. Peyton Battenfield
BJ Cunningham: I've got the Rockies at +175 in Cleveland. Peyton Battenfield will be on the mound for the Guardians. If it wasn’t for the injury of Aaron Civale, he would not have come up to the majors. If you look at his numbers from Triple-A last season, they were actually quite bad: 3.60 ERA, but his xFIP was up at 5.70. He has an incredibly low K/9 rate, and it’s because he does not have good stuff. He has a very below average fastball that only averaged in the low 90s. His best pitch is his cutter, which is OK by Stuff+ numbers.
Overall, through his first two starts, his Stuff+ is at 85. He is somebody that is going to eventually get hit in the majors. He’s gotten away with it through his first two starts with a 1.60 ERA.
He’s going up against Ryan Feltner who actually hasn’t been that bad this season. Although his ERA has ballooned up to 6.90, his expected ERA is sitting around 4.50. What he’s done this season is he’s throwing his slider more often than his fastball, and his slider is by far his best pitch. I think he’s only going to improve as he becomes less reliant on that fastball. His Stuff+ is at 95, so he’s a below average starting pitch, but guess what? He’s not worse than Peyton Battenfield.
This is something that I keep harping on every single episode, but the Cleveland Guardians are -15 in defensive runs saved. The only team worse in MLB is the Oakland Athletics. Now Cleveland doesn’t have this advantage defensively, although Colorado is a bad defensive team themselves, but for Peyton Battenfield to be this high of a favorite is a little insane to me.
I like the Rockies at +175.
Dodgers vs. Pirates, 6:35 p.m. ET
Noah Syndergaard vs. Johan Oviedo
Anthony Dabbundo: This is a pretty depleted Dodger lineup now. Max Muncy is on paternity leave, Will Smith remains injured and looks like he will not play this series. That means Austin Wynns is going to be behind the plate for the Dodgers, likely, and he is one of the worst catchers in baseball.
It makes a huge impact with pitch calling. If you watched the Cubs against Julio Urías, the matchup on Friday with Wynns behind the plate, Urías got absolutely destroyed by the Cubs. He’s not a good defensive catcher, he doesn’t really hit, and it makes a big impact trying to stop the running game as well, which is already a huge problem when you have Thor on the mound.
So I think Pittsburgh has a lot of advantages here: The Pirates have the better starting pitcher, and I know Bryan Reynolds is still out for Pittsburgh, but this lineup isn’t that much worse than the Dodgers right now because all of the absences – due to injury or parental duties – that are happening for the Dodgers here.
So I like Pittsburgh +110 at home. Johan Oviedo has had a huge breakout the last year, maybe half year, of 2022 and into 2023. Now he has two breaking balls that have been really effective. His fastball isn’t great, but he hides it well. And Oviedo has pitched to a sub-3 xERA since August of 2022. Do I think he’ll maintain that? Probably not, but he’s clearly an improved pitcher from the one that we saw in St. Louis that really couldn’t quite put the pieces together.
I’m going to roll with the Pirates +110 at home. Long gone are the days where you get like +170 or +180, but this Dodgers pitching staff with Thor– his stuff has not returned at all, his fastball is still sitting in the 90s – this is not a very good situation for the Dodgers, given their injuries. We might even see some Mookie Betts at short. It’s a sign of just how desperate they’re getting at this point in the season.
Payoff Pitch Underdog Picks for Tuesday, April 25
- Rockies moneyline
- Pirates moneyline
At FanDuel, this parlay would pay out at +457 at the time of this writing.
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