Where did the time go?
Somehow, we’re more than halfway through the MLB season, as it’s now July and every team has played at least 82 games. It feels like just yesterday that the season started, and soon enough, the league’s top teams will be fighting for their playoff survival.
There will be nonstop baseball action from 3:07 p.m. ET, when the first pitch in the New York Yankees-Toronto Blue Jays divisional clash will be thrown, and roughly 12:30 a.m. ET, when the Los Angeles Dodgers’ home game against the Chicago White Sox is projected to finish. Here are two of my favorite bets from tonight’s games.
Athletics at Tampa Bay Rays
Tampa Bay Rays -1.5 (+123)
The AL East has somewhat flipped on its head after 2024. Last season, both the Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays finished with losing records, 14 and 20 games behind the division-winning (and later pennant-winning) Yankees. Now, both teams are in the division title fight, with Tampa Bay one and a half games behind New York and Toronto two games back. The Rays have been especially hot, going 23-12 since May 20, and though they’ve lost two straight games, they should feel good about their offense, which was the league’s highest-scoring in June.
Across that 35-game span, Jonathan Aranda had a .910 OPS, and he wasn’t even the best-performing infielder on the team. Yandy Díaz posted a .955 OPS, and Junior Caminero one-upped them both with a .996 mark. Tampa Bay also had a roughly league-average pitching staff in June, which is all it needed given how good the offense is and is fairly impressive in itself because the Rays are playing in the Yankees’ Triple-A stadium, which combines hitter-friendly dimensions with warm, wet weather.
The Athletics have recovered somewhat from a nightmarish 1-20 stretch, going 12-12 in their last 24 games, and they beat Tampa Bay last night, but I’m still going to roll with the hot hand in a larger sample size. Jeffrey Springs is rarely going to be bad enough to lose you the game outright — he’s given up more than four runs in only two of his 17 starts — but he’s also not a pitcher who’s going to win you too many. I prefer the upside of Shane Baz, who blanked the Kansas City Royals for eight shutout innings in his most recent start. The Athletics’ offense is still pretty cold; over the last 24 games, they’ve posted just a .696 OPS, a mark that would be the league’s ninth-worst across the full season.
Chicago White Sox at Los Angeles Dodgers
Under 8.5 (-111)
Given that the Dodgers scored eight runs in Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s most recent start, maybe Los Angeles’ lack of run support for its ace is overblown. Seven of those runs came after he left the game, but if I’d placed this bet last Wednesday, it wouldn’t have hit. Either way, the total has been under 8.5 runs in 11 of Yamamoto’s 16 starts this season, so I don’t mind it. For the season, the Dodgers have only scored 3.9 runs per game when Yamamoto starts, and a league-low 1.8 per 27 outs with him actually on the mound.
I back Yamamoto to have a long and effective outing tonight, given that Chicago has the league’s worst offense. He was cruising in his most recent start before a rain delay forced Los Angeles to pull him after five innings, but he had thrown just 56 pitches and could’ve easily gone another two or three innings. Expecting the three-time Eiji Sawamura Award winner to pitch six or more innings and give up two or fewer runs is reasonable.
Yamamoto aside, the White Sox are also countering with one of their better pitchers. Rookie Shane Smith has a very solid 3.38 ERA this season, and though he’s gotten blown up in each of his last two starts, he’s been better on the road than at home and should have a chance of bouncing back at Dodger Stadium. Plus, Los Angeles’ offense hasn’t been incredibly hot by its lofty standards; though it posted a .755 OPS in June, the fifth-best mark in the league, that pales in comparison to its ridiculous .818 mark through the end of May.
