Sitting at 14-9 for +6.36 units so far, Dalton Brown is back with two more best bets for Tuesday's packed slate of MLB games.
By Dalton Brown
7:10 p.m. ET: Boston Red Sox at Cleveland Guardians: Red Sox team total OVER 3.5 (-115) at BetRivers
The Boston Red Sox will begin a three-game series with the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field on Tuesday, and I see a golden opportunity to fade Shane Bieber.
Bieber (4-3, 3.72 ERA) has a decent looking resume at first glance, and his name certainly carries a strong pedigree with it - but a deeper dive reveals plenty of reason for concern. The righty has pitched to an xERA of 4.89 this season, and his Baseball Savant profile is packed with a disturbing amount of blue (below-average) numbers. Bieber has allowed six or more earned runs in two of his last four starts, as it seems that the negative regression he eluded in April finally caught up to him in May. He's also walked eight batters over his last three starts, adding insult to injury as his repertoire declines.
The Red Sox boast an offense that ranks eighth in wRC+ (105) against right-handed pitching this season, ad Boston already saw Bieber back in April. I see the Sox offense coming out hot after a day off and sprinting past an unusually-low team total in this one.
7:05 p.m. ET: Oakland A's at Pittsburgh Pirates: Pirates -1.5 (-106) at BetRivers
Call me square, but fading the Oakland A's can be both the obvious side and the correct side in a spot like this.
Pittsburgh is sending its ace to the bump in Mitch Keller (7-1, 3.25 ERA), a righty whose impressive season is backed up by an xERA of 3.15. Sure, he surrendered 10 runs over 12 innings over his last two starts, but I'm not terribly concerned - he also struck out 16, walked just two, and finished six innings in both outings. I trust in his ability to avoid the big inning pitching back home against Oakland (28th-ranked wRC+ vs. righties since May 1), an offense that is not nearly as capable as San Francisco or Seattle. If anything, we are getting Keller at a better price than we should here because of the crooked numbers he coughed up on the Pirates' road trip.
The Athletics are sending James Kaprielian (0-6, 8.12 ERA) out for another start, and while a look under the hood shows he has improved in a relative sense, he's still worth a fade here. Kaprielian's May "improvement" saw him post a 4.57 ERA, and his season-long xERA still sits at 5.58. The righty has surrendered three or more earned runs in three of his last four starts, and is the owner of a 10.32 ERA away from home.
Kaprielian has also recorded an out beyond the fifth inning just once this season, so expect the worst bullpen in baseball - and an already tired group - to be busy.
Pittsburgh has found its groove again, winning six straight. I expect that streak will be broken some time after the 12-50 A's leave town.