No team in the National League playoff race feels safer than the Philadelphia Phillies. They’re six games ahead of the New York Mets in the NL East, and within striking distance of the Milwaukee Brewers for the top seed in the league. But the Miami Marlins won’t roll over and let their division rivals walk over them.
The Phillies enter as -246 moneyline favorites on DraftKings Sportsbook. The over/under is set at eight runs. Let’s dig into a preview, prediction and best bet for this Phillies vs. Marlins matchup.
Phillies vs. Marlins prediction, preview
Cristopher Sánchez may have a case for the most underrated pitcher in baseball. An All-Star last season, he’s improved by leaps and bounds this year. He’s lowered his ERA from 3.32 to 2.66, his WHIP from 1.244 to 1.122, and boosted his K/9 from 7.6 to 9.6. According to Baseball Savant, he has added 27 runs to the Phillies this year with his pitching, a 97th percentile mark in baseball. Despite that, he was not named to the All-Star Game this season.
Sánchez wins with a unique pitching arsenal. 45% of his pitches are sinkers, 38% are changeups and 17% are sliders. Unsurprisingly, that has resulted in a very high ground ball rate. Being an effective ground ball and strikeout pitcher is difficult to achieve, but he’s pulled it off. And the Marlins are his next victim.
His opposite number, Valente Bellozo, has significantly less experience and results. A starter for the first five games of the year, Bellozo was solidly average in the role before being moved to bulk reliever. He’s pitched 2.1 innings per appearance on average out of the bullpen, with a 4.18 ERA as a perfectly acceptable long man. Now he returns to the rotation, facing a behemoth Philly lineup. But luckily, this Philadelphia lineup has been awfully boom or bust in the last week, with more bust than boom.
Here are the last seven run totals for Philly: 19, 2, 3, 1, 10, 3 and 2. The averages would tell you they’re doing well, but that’s five below-average offensive performances in seven games. Bellozo may not go super deep into this one, but I’m confident that he can do enough to coax another bust performance out of this lineup before handing things off to the bullpen.
