MLB 5/11/21 Preview
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This is a fun Tuesday around baseball for the local baseball teams. For this Tuesday, we are going to be concentrating on game totals. Whenever you bet on baseball, the most important thing to base your bets off is pitching. Pitching controls everything. Great hitting teams get shut down by top-tier pitching all the time. Bad hitting teams put up runs against bad pitching all the time. That is why pitching is the key that unlocks where the value will be for us to bet on.
We have a great pitching matchup in the Orioles/Mets game. John Means is fresh off a no-hitter. His numbers are sparkling as you would expect from a guy who just added a 12-strikeout, no-hit, no-run complete game to his early-season stats. Means has an ERA of 1.37, but an xFIP of 3.44. Those two numbers tend to converge as the season goes on, so whenever one or the other is out of whack, you do expect to see some regression back to the mean. In Means’ case (All pun intended), that would be a negative regression to bring that ridiculously low ERA up toward the xFIP, which is still well below his career averages.
The Mets are a solid team against LHP. They own a 118 wRC+ score this year, meaning they are about 18% above league average in that split. Even looking back three years with the current lineup, they own a 108 wRC+, which is above league average. This is not a soft spot for Means’ return after throwing a gem last time out. Pitchers tend to come back after a game like that and struggle. Many times, they pitched deeper into a game than they normally would have if not carrying a potential no-hitter, and that takes something out of them for the next contest. I would not be shocked if Means gets pulled a bit early in this one.
The Mets have a solid pitcher of their own on the mound Tuesday in Marcus Stroman. Stroman has been better this year than his career numbers, which are also pretty solid. His xFIP is 3.18 vs. 3.57 for his career. His strikeouts are at 7.6 per 9 IP, up from 7.36. His HR/9 and BB/9 are both down, and he is still getting a ton of ground balls. He has almost a 60% GB rate for his career, and he’s a tad under that now, but not by much at over 55%. He has a much softer spot against the dreadful Orioles lineup. They currently have the third-lowest wRC+ against righties in the league at just 81. They strike out 24.4% of the time and have a league low wOBA against righties. Stroman should be in line for one of his best outings yet this season.
I like two ways to play this game. The first was the Mets to win, but a -155 moneyline on Tipico Sportsbook is a little too rich for my blood. That gives the Mets a 61% win probability. I think that is a little high. Given the pitcher-friendly park and the fact we have two of the better pitchers on each team on the mound, that total is where I want to go. Neither of these offenses scare me so even at 6.5 runs I like the under here. If this game was in Baltimore, I might not want to go this route, but a 3-2, 4-1 kind of game makes a lot of sense. If Means pitches anywhere near what he did last time out, this could be scoreless going into the seventh when both teams turn it over to the bullpen.
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