Padres vs Braves Odds & Prediction : Sunday Night Baseball Pick
| San Diego Padres Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Run Line (Spread) | Over/Under | Moneyline |
-1.5 +160 | 9 +100o / -120u | +102 |
| Atlanta Braves Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Run Line (Spread) | Over/Under | Moneyline |
+1.5 -192 | 9 +100o / -120u | -122 |
The San Diego Padres and Atlanta Braves are set to resume their series on Sunday Night Baseball after Saturday’s contest was postponed due to heavy rain. The original scheduled starters from Saturday – Yu Darvish for the Padres and Bryce Elder for the Braves – are slated to take the hill.
The starting pitching matchup certainly favors San Diego on paper, as Darvish has been nails since returning from the injured list on April 30. The veteran right-hander enters Sunday Night Baseball on a run of 17 scoreless innings over three starts, with a sterling 15:2 K:BB ratio. He defeated the vaunted Dodgers in his last outing, twirling seven shutout frames.
The latest Padres vs Braves odds, however, have the Braves as -122 moneyline favorites, with an over/under of 9 (+100o /-122u).
Can Darvish stay hot and lead the Padres to a second straight win in Atlanta, or will the Braves finally wake up from their offensive slumber? Find out in my Sunday Night Baseball betting preview below, which includes my Padres vs Braves moneyline prediction.
San Diego Padres
On the surface, it's been a very encouraging season to this point for Darvish after a slow decline over the past three years. He's owned one of the best ERAs in the league — supported by a 3.17 xERA — but the same issues that have held him down are still very much there.
It's a marvel that Darvish hasn't pitched to more expected hits to this point. He's worn a poor 42% hard-hit rate, which is the worst he's ever had tracked by Statcast, and 30.4% of the batted balls against him are coming back in the air. Yet he owns a .232 xBA and .350 xSLG, both of which are solid marks.
When we hear about "luck" in the expected stats, it's rarely the case. Normally, a pitcher is either aided by a great defense, a master at pitching to ground balls or owns an inflated xERA due to issues with walks. In this case, given all the well-struck fly balls against Darvish in chorus with a strikeout rate that has once again dropped for a fourth straight season, it would appear he's been incredibly fortunate to perform as well as he has.
You know what nobody will look at in this matchup? The fact that, impossibly, six of Darvish's eight starts have come in the most pitcher-friendly park in baseball over in San Diego. Heading to hitter-friendly Truist Park, ranked seventh in the league over the past three seasons in park factor for home runs, I think this is a prime regression spot for the 37-year-old.
While Darvish's outing should dictate this game, it's worth noting that the Padres have cooled significantly at the plate over the past two weeks with a terrible .096 Isolated Power (ISO). They're continuing to put the ball on the ground, doing so on nearly half of their batted balls, so while they're not striking out at all, it's not as if they're able to do much when the ball is heading back into play.
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Atlanta Braves
Elder is one of those guys that folks called "lucky" a year ago after pitching underneath his xERA to what turned out to be an All-Star season. He carried a poor 17.5% strikeout rate and a mediocre 8.6% walk rate, and with a .264 xBA it certainly seemed as if he should have run into more trouble.
Well, not much has changed this year for Elder, except the results. His xBA is a bloated .289 on account of an extremely poor 47% hard-hit rate, but he's actually pitched to even more ground balls this season at 56.1%, up about six points from last year.
In a twist, however, the Braves' infield ranked just 25th in Outs Above Average a season ago and is all the way up in seventh to begin 2024. They did lose Austin Riley, but Zack Short has slotted in to give them a perfectly fine replacement with the glove and the rest of this starting nine has shined in the field. When we talk about a heavy contact pitcher, this is important to note.
The Padres are rolling over everything at the moment and generating a plethora of weakly hit ground balls, and their .668 OPS against ground-ballers this season pales in comparison to their .774 OPS against fly-ball pitchers. We'd have to consider this a good matchup for Elder despite how his season has gone so far.
Padres vs. Braves
Betting Pick & Prediction
While you may quickly glance at the xERA for both starting pitchers and assume it'll be Darvish to have the better night, I think this matchup is significantly weighted toward Elder.
The Padres should play right into his hands with the way they've made contact, and with a strong defense behind him he should find the outs required to let his struggling offense begin to heat up again.
This couldn't be a better bounce-back spot for the power-hungry Braves, who should find the outfield seats on a couple of occasions against Darvish given the significant change in park factor. Some of those well-struck fly balls he's allowed in San Diego will turn into extra bases in Atlanta, and we should see a long-awaited offensive outburst here.
I see a significant amount of value in the Braves at home as very short favorites.
Pick: Braves ML (-120)
