Two AL West foes once again duke it out in sunny California in Tuesday night’s MLB late slate. The Los Angeles Angels took last night’s series opener over the Texas Rangers with a 6-5 finish as they gained a little bit of ground in the division race. Tonight’s matchup holds just as high of stakes for both sides as the home team looks to build a lead while the visitors try and retake third place in the standings.
Here’s an Angels vs. Rangers prediction and pick on DraftKings Sportsbook for Tuesday night’s game.
Angels vs. Rangers prediction, preview
Los Angeles Angels
The Angels improved to 44-46 overall with last night’s win as the offense actually showed up throughout the contest, a bit of a rarity for this squad at times. Los Angeles tallied 10 hits thanks to seven different batters, though Travis d’Arnaud’s two-hit, three-RBI game stood out among the rest with his second-inning homer off Jacob deGrom.
When the Halos’ bats are firing, they can put up enough runs to counter their own generally-poor pitching staff and win a few games. They’re a scrappy team that you can’t really count out, but the question of whether the lineup will make contact does remain worth asking on a nightly basis as they rank bottom-five in AVG, OBP and strikeouts. As mentioned yesterday, the Angels’ pitching staff falls bottom-seven in ERA and bottom-three in WHIP, so there’s not much room for offensive inconsistency when the pitching can’t be counted on.
Texas Rangers
The Rangers are beginning to find themselves in danger at 44-47 after last night. Usually, five runs would be more than enough for this team to put a check in the win column, but it just didn’t do the job as the Angels got to star hurler Jacob deGrom early and eventually walked the game off with a bases-loaded walk allowed by Hoby Milner. One notable stat here is that Texas fell to 18-28 on the road this year, something to keep in mind for tonight.
One poor outing doesn’t mean the Rangers dropped far on the stat leaderboards as they still sit first in ERA by a considerable margin and second in WHIP. The success of their arms makes the lack of run support arguably more frustrating since the bats don’t consistently back up the great performances the pitching puts out. Only Corey Seager boasts an OPS of .800 or better, while Josh Smith and Wyatt Langford are the only every-day contributors with a mark above .700. It’s just flat-out hard to win like that, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the Rangers are within the bottom-four teams in AVG and OPS with the sixth-fewest runs on the year.
Angels vs. Rangers pick, best bet
The odds on DraftKings Sportsbook indicate a relative toss-up for this game’s outcome. The Rangers are -119 favorites on the Moneyline but the Angels aren’t far behind at -102 themselves. As for the run total, that’s set at an even eight.
Jose Soriano starts for the Angels this evening with a 3.72 ERA, 1.42 WHIP and 91 strikeouts through 104.0 innings of work. He allowed just three hits with one or fewer earned runs in two of his last three outings, but he also was shelled for nine knocks and eight earned runs in the other. He’s a bit inconsistent, though he remains one of L.A.’s better arms when he’s dishing his best stuff.
As for the Rangers’ starter, Nathan Eovaldi gets the starting nod and gives his team an instant advantage. In his 77.1 innings this season, the righty boasts an elite 1.75 ERA and 0.85 WHIP along with 80 punchouts. He’s clearly one of the MLB’s top pitchers and gave up two hits with no earned runs in two of his own last three starts.
Sure, the Angels got to deGrom yesterday but I’m very confident they won’t manage to do the same against Eovaldi tonight. The righty is just on another level this year as he puts up career-best numbers, so Los Angeles should have a tough time hitting him this evening. Couple that with how strikeout-happy the Angels are (they’ve gone down on strikes more than any other team) and it feels like a great opportunity to take one of Eovaldi’s strikeout props.
Bettors can snag over 5.5 strikeouts at -150 odds or push the line up a little to 7+ strikeouts at +135 instead. He’s tallied six or more Ks in eight of 14 starts and seven strikeouts in seven of those 14, so either one feels quite reliable tonight.
Best bet: Nathan Eovaldi 7+ strikeouts (+135)
Click the odds on this bet to tail!
