The Texas Rangers enter Sunday’s home game as the leaders in the American League West and hope to continue the regression of Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Chris Bassitt.
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Texas Rangers (-120, 9)
Though Bassitt’s 7-5 record paired with a 4.02 ERA appear respectable, he owns a fielding independent of 5.00 with a career-high 1.6 home runs per nine innings allowed coupled with 7.9 strikeouts and 2.9 walks per nine innings thus far.
The strong opening performance Bassitt had to start the season is starting to iron out as he has surrendered a total of 17 runs and six home runs across his past four starts after starting the season with a 3.03 ERA and a 4.93 fielding independent through his first 10 starts.
Bassitt faces a lineup that on Saturday had seven of the nine starters enter the game with a batting average of at least .277 and 6.3 runs per-game average when playing at home.
The Rangers will look to Jon Gray to continue his dazzling 2023 season, posting a 2.32 ERA with one or zero runs allowed in six straight starts with a 0.84 ERA and a strikeout-to-walk rate of 7.3.
Gray faces a Blue Jays lineup that has been surprisingly ordinary this season, ranking 14th among the 30 MLB in the percentage of at-bats that produces a home run and 13th in runs per game with just 33.6% of their hits being for extra bases, good for 22nd.
The Rangers have won six of their last seven games where Gray started and with the strong backup lineup that ranks second in home runs per game at home, they will win Sunday’s series finale.
The Play: Rangers -120
