As always, I’m going to preface the following statement by saying I don’t want to jinx anything, but we’re having a really nice start to the season on article plays. Entering today’s MLB slate, we’re sitting at 19-11 for 2024 as a whole, putting us up 7.7 units.
Can we keep the good times going Wednesday night? Let’s dive in and find out.
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Boston Red Sox at Tampa Bay Rays
Brayan Bello Over 4.5 Strikeouts (-115)
Bello’s history with strikeouts is an interesting one. By the eye test, you’d assume the 25-year-old is racking up swings and misses with the best arms in baseball, yet Bello owns an underwhelming career strikeout rate of just 20.1%. That’s despite 74th percentile average fastball velocity. That’s despite a swinging strike rate of 11.0% across 250.2 innings at the MLB level. Sometimes things just don’t line up like you think they should. Still, Bello does have at least six strikeouts in three of his last six outings. It’s not as if he’s never shown the potential to be a big strikeout guy.
Matchup seems to play a huge part with Bello. Two of those big strikeout outputs came against the Athletics and the Pirates, a pair of lineups that happen to rank inside the top seven in MLB team strikeout rate. Another lineup you’ll find atop that particular leaderboard? The Rays. Tampa sits with the seventh-highest strikeout rate in baseball at 24.5%. The Rays also happen to own the league’s fifth-highest marks in both chase rate (33.5%) and swinging strike rate (11.9%). Needless to say, there’s some holes in this roster, at least as it pertains to contact rate. That’s why it’s not shocking to see that Tampa’s woes have increased the last two weeks, with the team registering a 27.5% strikeout rate in that specific span of time. Bello could be in for an exciting performance.
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Chicago White Sox at Toronto Blue Jays
Over 8.5 (-102)
I’ll be the first to admit that these aren’t exactly two offensive juggernauts. On paper, the White Sox might have the worst lineup in baseball, while the Blue Jays have been underperforming for the better part of two seasons. However, what if I was to tell you that the pitching featured in this contest was going to be worse? Like, incredibly worse.
Let’s start with Chris Bassitt. The veteran RHP has been one of MLB’s most consistent starters the past half-decade, yet Bassitt’s control seems to have abandoned him so far in 2024. Across 48.1 innings of work, the 35-year-old is walking a career-worst 10.8% of the batters he’s faced. Bassitt is also giving up over a hit per inning this season, which has translated into a 1.53 WHIP — the second-highest qualified mark in the American League. You could argue that Bassitt’s BABIP is a little inflated and his strand rate is a little low, but at the end of the day, his 5.03 ERA is validated by a 5.00 xERA. Bassitt simply isn’t pitching well at the moment and he’s backed up by a Toronto bullpen that ranks 28th in ERA (4.92).
On the other side we find Nick Nastrini, who is being recalled from Triple-A to make this start for Chicago. Why was Nastrini in the minors? Well, in the two starts he made for the White Sox earlier this season, he walked seven batters and allowed seven earned runs in a combined eight innings. Things haven’t gone much better in Charlotte. In 29.1 innings with the Knights, Nastrini is surrendering 2.76 home runs per nine and is in possession of a 6.39 FIP. The Blue Jays scored nine runs against Chicago on Monday. It’s possible that they can cover this total all by themselves.
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