After splitting a doubleheader on Wednesday, the Yankees and Angels will battle it out for the series on Thursday night as the struggling Nestor Cortes takes the ball against Tyler Anderson.
While the Yankees have embarked on an incredible run at the dish, the Angels have quietly shown some signs of life in their own right and should put the forecast for these two middling arms into serious question. Will either be able to turn around their tough run of form?
Let's get into my Yankees vs Angels prediction for Thursday night.
Yankees vs. Angels Odds, Prediction
| Yankees Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Total | Run Line |
+198 | 8.5 -105 / -115 | +1.5 -104 |
| Angels Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Total | Run Line |
-240 | 8.5 -105 / -115 | -1.5 -115 |
Yankees vs. Angels Projected Starting Pitchers
| LHP Tyler Anderson (LAA) | Stat | LHP Nestor Cortes (NYY) |
|---|---|---|
| 8-10 | W-L | 5-9 |
| 1.7 | fWAR (FanGraphs) | 1.9 |
| 3.05/4.19 | ERA /xERA | 4.16/3.69 |
| 4.41/4.81 | FIP / xFIP | 4.03/4.16 |
| 1.17 | WHIP | 1.20 |
| 9.2% | K-BB% | 17.5% |
| 37.6% | GB% | 30.9% |
| 96 | Stuff+ | 99 |
| 100 | Location+ | 101 |
Kenny Ducey's Yankees vs. Angels Preview
New York Yankees Preview: Trust Cortes?
It's been quite the run for the Yankees, who have taken eight of their last 10 games entering play on Thursday. While it seems like things have only picked up recently, however, the Yankees were still producing at the plate amidst a tough month of July where they went just 11-13.
New York finished fourth in the game with a 126 wRC+ last month, driven by a solid .209 Isolated Power and more brilliance in both the strikeout and walk departments. The home side has only grown in those areas, dropping its strikeout rate by nearly three points to 16.8% over the past two weeks with a beefy .264 ISO, but the biggest improvement has come in a .304 batting average which tops its .251 mark in July by a considerable margin.
The story in July continued to be about this pitching staff, which took another step in the wrong direction. Nestor Cortes was an arm that was particularly inefficient, posting a 6.93 ERA in 24 2/3 innings with just one of his last four starts lasting five innings.
Cortes continues to profile as an extreme fly ball pitcher at around 11 points greater than the average, and that's begun to really bite him with a total of six home runs against him in five July starts and six in six June outings. He's also begun to walk more batters to boot.
So, while Cortes owns an acceptable .240 Expected Batting Average and cool 3.69 xERA, his issues haven't come in consistent damage rather in some isolated incidents throughout his starts and they've been made worse by a growing number of free passes.
Los Angeles Angels Preview: Recent Track Record is Surprisingly Solid
Don't look now, but the Angels have posted a pretty decent 98 wRC+ over the last two weeks despite losing Luis Rengifo to a season-ending surgery and watching Mike Trout re-injure himself on his rehab assignment to experience the same fate.
L.A. has hit for slightly more power than it did over the course of July, but the real story has come in some better plate discipline and hits coming with more frequency. It's taken its 37.1% fly-ball rate for the season, ranked 24th in the league, and brought it up to 41.6% over the past two weeks in an effort to hit for more power — something that bettors should take note of with Cortes toeing the slab.
The Angels have a lefty here who's been a fly-ball arm in his own right who's now allowed four homers in his last four starts in Anderson who might see a similar challenge here against a Yankees team which has preferred to hit ground balls this year but has seen a slight uptick in fly balls over the last 14 days, and while he's been carried by some impressive strikeout numbers over the past five starts he surely won't be able to rely upon punchouts against a team putting so many balls in play.
Yankees vs. Angels Predictions: Fade Anderson
Anderson may be experiencing some issues with the longball of late, but it doesn't do his batted profile much justice. He's pitched near a 50% ground-ball rate since the start of July with a huge dip in xBA to .201 last month and continues to watch his hard-hit rate drop with every month.
The issue here is the Yankees would actually much prefer that Anderson pitches this way, ranking second in OPS to ground-ball pitchers and hitting .276 to rank fourth in the league. This has been a trend that's remained constant all year, and while they've been slightly worse against lefties, I still give them a fair chance to continue laying waste to opposing pitchers given Anderson's growing strikeout rate won't play up enough to mask his below-average expected marks on contact.
The Angels have been considerably better against ground-ball arms in their own right, ranking 29th in OPS to fly-ballers as compared to eighth in the reverse split, and while they've looked decent enough offensively of late I'm not quite sure they have a good enough matchup here to make me a believer.
With wet and colder conditions at Yankee Stadium on Thursday night, I anticipate this one being a battle of who can do more consistent damage on contact and rack up base hits. The Yankees would stand a much better chance to win a game like this, and with that we'll back them to finish in front over the first five innings.
Moneyline
After opening up at -220 on the moneyline, the cash came pouring in on the Yankees to push them out near -280 before the line corrected a bit early on Thursday to steadily bring this line closer to the opening line and rest around -240 as of this writing.
The recent movement would seem to make sense considering we've tracked some sharp action and big money on the Angels, and while they account for just 8% of the tickets, 22% of the money is on L.A. to pull the upset.
Run Line (Spread)
The Yankees have covered the run line in just two of their last five games while the Angels have now done so in three of their last four. New York is just 23-29 to the run line as home favorites this year, and the Angels stand 30-20 to the run line as road underdogs this season.
Over/Under
The Over did cash in Game 2 of Wednesday's doubleheader, but it was just the first time that it's happened in the Angels' last seven contests. With that said, it made it 10 of the last 12 Yankees games that have gone over the total. While the Angels have gone jut 54-55-5 to the Over this season, it's now hit 62.9% of the time when the Yankees have been favored.
The opening number here was eight, and after reaching as high as nine runs things have settled back in at 8.5 on Thursday. We've seen sharp action and big money hit the Under, which is something to watch considering the overwhelming majority of the bets and money are on the Over.
