Well, it’s the final Monday of the MLB regular season. We did it? That felt wrong. I actually did very little.
To make up for my laziness, here are a couple of my favorite bets on tonight’s super small slate. They’re totally not lazy. I swear.
Boston Red Sox at Toronto Blue Jays
Red Sox ML (-102)
While the Blue Jays are at home for this contest, I’m still a little shocked to see the team favored on Monday night. Toronto has dropped five of its last six games, which includes a sweep at the hands of the Rays this past weekend. The Jays were among the biggest sellers at the trade deadline and that’s left the squad’s bullpen completely depleted and it’s lineup looking more like a Triple-A team than a major league roster. As such, Toronto owns baseball’s lowest ISO across the past two weeks (.097). It also sports a lowly 91 wRC+ in that same span of time. Obviously no one in a uniform is actively trying to lose games, but this is not an organization that is currently all that interested in wins and losses — especially with six contests left in their season.
To be fair, Boston doesn’t have that much more to play for. The Red Sox enter the day four games out of a Wild Card spot in the American League, yet FanGraphs currently has the club’s playoff odds set at a microscopic 0.3%. Woof. Still, Boston has been the better team all year long and I believe that will continue this evening.
You really don’t have to look much further than the starting pitching matchup to get a sense of the Red Sox’s stark advantage. Tanner Houck is having a breakout campaign for Boston. Across 29 starts and 173.2 innings, the right-hander has registered a 3.21 ERA with a 3.31 FIP and a 3.69 SIERA. Things have been a little rockier for the 28-year-old in the season’s second-half, yet Houck’s still managed a 3.46 FIP over his last five outings. Chris Bassitt can not say the same. Not only is the veteran’s 4.16 ERA his highest mark in a season since all the way back in 2016, he’s also in possession of a 5.31 ERA dating back to the All-Star break. Needless to say, Bassitt does not come into Monday’s tilt feeling his best.
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Chicago Cubs at Philadelphia Phillies
Nate Pearson Over 1.5 Strikeouts (+100)
Isn’t this a blast from the past? It be perfectly clear, Pearson is making a start tonight for the Cubs as an opener, but that doesn’t change the fact that this will be the RHP’s first MLB start since 2021 — back when Pearson was a massive pitching prospect in the Blue Jays system. Pearson isn’t quite as stretched out as he was back then, yet the 28-year-old has pitched multiple innings in nine of the 16 appearances he’s made since being traded to Chicago in late July. Seven of those nine were exactly two innings. I’d expect that’s what Craig Counsell is envisioning on Monday.
If that’s the case, Pearson has a real shot at going over this modest prop. In the 104 games Pearson has pitched as a reliever at the MLB level, he’s averaged 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings with a notable 26.4% strikeout rate. Meanwhile, for as good as the Phillies are, they’re not impervious to the occasional swing and miss. In fact, over the last 14 days, Philadelphia sports the league’s ninth-highest strikeout rate at 26.2%. That includes the likes of Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto and Bryce Harper all being in possession of a strikeout rate above 30% in that span of time.
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All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests.
