A thrilling weekend in baseball concludes with ESPN Sunday Night Baseball at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, where Luis Severino and the New York Mets are hoping to salvage something from this interleague road series after dropping two straight to the Seattle Mariners. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET.
The host Mariners still aren't ripping the cover off the ball, but they do come in on a three-game winning streak and will counter with their ace Luis Castillo. Another development for the Mariners is that superstar outfielder Julio Rodriguez was activated from the injured list and is in the starting lineup for this primetime game on ESPN. Rodriguez has been sidelined since July 21 after sustaining a right ankle sprain. He is batting cleanup and serving as the Mariners' designated hitter on Sunday night.
What can we expect to see out of both offenses with two effective starters in Severino and Castillo on the bump? Let's get into my Mets vs Mariners prediction and pick in my betting preview below, which includes the latest Sunday Night Baseball odds.
Mets vs Mariners Prediction: Bet the Under
The Mariners are -130 favorites at home against the Mets in Sunday Night Baseball, with New York +110 to pick up the road win. The run line Mariners -1.5, with Seattle +145 to cover and the Mets -185. The total, which is where our Mets vs Mariners best bet is focused, is set at over/under 7.5 runs scored by both teams combined.
We're taking the under, and the juice on that side of the total is anywhere from +100 to -120 across the market, so be sure to shop around for the latest MLB odds before tailing my Mets vs Mariners prediction.
Mets vs Mariners Odds
| Mets Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
+1.5 -200 | 7.5 -115o / -105u | +110 |
| Mariners Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
-1.5 +164 | 7.5 -115o / -105u | -130 |
Probable Starting Pitchers for Mets vs Mariners
| RHP Luis Severino (NYM) | Stat | RHP Luis Castillo (SEA) |
|---|---|---|
| 7-5 | W-L | 9-11 |
| 1.2 | fWAR (FanGraphs) | 2.6 |
| 4.06/3.92 | ERA /xERA | 3.48/3.81 |
| 4.38/4.43 | FIP / xFIP | 3.57/3.75 |
| 1.25 | WHIP | 1.17 |
| 10.5% | K-BB% | 17.3% |
| 47.8% | GB% | 43% |
| 104 | Stuff+ | 101 |
| 99 | Location+ | 104 |
Kenny Ducey’s Mets vs Mariners Sunday Night Baseball Preview
Mets Betting Preview: NY Battling Regression?
It seems as if any time the Mets lose consecutive games, fans of this team begin to panic given the trauma they've been through over the years. While we often scoff at the sight of panic, there's definitely some items to be concerned about given the recent play.
New York is now just 15th in wRC+ over the last two weeks and 23rd in the last seven days, and in both splits it is striking out more than 23% of the time in a big reversal of what we've been accustomed to seeing all season long. Its Isolated Power has dipped significantly as well, and walks continue to be hard to come by, though the Mets continue to at least hit above the league average. There's been little difference in terms of the batted ball profile with continued balance between ground balls and fly balls, so it's hard to really pinpoint a reason for this team's rut.
Speaking of slumps, Severino has begun to regress over his past two starts in allowing 10 earned runs across eight frames. The right-hander has had to work at two hitter-friendly parks in Minnesota and Colorado, however, with three home runs doing him in around the 14 hits he's yielded.
Severino continues to be a pitcher very much geared towards ground balls, but his rate of contact on the ground hit a season-low 40.7% in the month of July and continued to fall last go around at Coors Field. The expected stats didn't look all that bad against the Rockies, but he is coming off the worst month of his season in terms of Expected Batting Average (.272) and Expected Slugging (.454).
Mariners Betting Preview: Can Luis Castillo Hold Up?
The song remains the same for the Mariners, who continue to punish the ball directly into the air despite playing at a home park where that's a very bad idea. They remain dead last in baseball with a 27.7% strikeout rate over the course of the season and have punched out in 27.1% of plate appearances in the past two weeks, hitting a measly .211 over that span with a mediocre .152 ISO.
Severino should prove to be a tough matchup for the Mariners, considering they rank 25th in OPS to ground-ball pitchers as opposed to 12th in the reverse split. They've hit roughly the same at .227 and .229, respectively, so it's not even as if we can expect hits to pile up while the power remains rather suppressed.
Castillo, meanwhile, continues to skate by despite diminished velocity on his fastball. After a brief recovery in June, his xBA on the pitch was back up to .219 in July, but the good news is that his strikeout rate came up a hair to 21.8% but remains on a downwards trajectory as he approaches the league average in that category.
That's a big deal when you consider Castillo had been up over 27% for the past two seasons, and has now gone backwards for a second straight year in the xBA category to bring him two points over the league average. Despite an uptick in ground balls this year, we've seen more expected damage on contact against the right-hander and those ground ball numbers have only climbed as the year has gone on.
Mets vs Mariners Prediction: Bet the Under for Sunday Night Baseball
Neither team is in a particularly great spot on Sunday with the Mets trailing behind in OPS to ground-ball pitchers just as the Mariners do. They sit just 19th against pitchers who aim for contact on the ground versus eighth in the reverse split, hitting just .248. When you factor in some slight improvement in the strikeout department for Castillo and the Mets' issues in plate discipline, the right-hander should have a good opportunity to mow down this team.
I'm also not as concerned with Severino as many may be considering he's had some adverse conditions for pitching over the last couple of outings and had to encounter a red-hot Twins team on the road. The Mariners simply can't hurt Severino like these other teams, lacking that same kind of power and taking a terrible approach for their home park.
It's not exactly a novel concept to back the under at T-Mobile Park, but I'm not really seeing a clear edge for either offense here against two pitchers that, while flawed, have been effective and reliable overall this year.
Moneyline
We've seen some rather significant movement in this line, which opened just shy of -120 in favor of the Mariners before pushing out all the way to -140 as of this writing. We've tracked some sharp action coming in on Seattle, which has commanded 75% of the tickets and 78% of the cash wagered on the moneyline.
With that said, the Mariners have cashed the moneyline in 60% of the games they've been favored at home, going 30-20 in all.
Run Line (Spread)
While the Mariners have done a decent job of winning when they come in as favorites in Seattle, they're just 25-37 to the run line in these games to hit at just a 40.3% clip. The Mets are hitting the run line in just 49.6% of their games this year, but stand at 17-13 as road underdogs to cash in 56.7% of those games.
New York has gone 0-3 to the run line in its last three games as the underdog while the Mariners have now cashed in two straight as the favorite after failing to do so in four straight.
Over/Under
This is where it gets a little crazy. We'll lay out the damning trends for the Over in a moment, but we should note that this line opened up at just seven runs before moving up to 7.5 with some further movement in price towards the Over. There's been some sharp activity on the Over as well.
The Under has hit in 64.6% of the Mariners' games at home this year to represent one of the largest numbers in the game, and while the Over has hit in just one of the Mariners' last six games, it hasn't hit in a Mets game since July 31st — which was 10 games ago.
