This article is part of our MLB Picks series.
Previous day: 1-2, -1.67 RWBucks (one rainout)
Season: 70-91-3, -29.65 RWBucks
So a week into the stepped-up enforcement of rule 6.02(c)(4) -- "don't put crap on the ball, guys" -- largely ignored for 100 years, we've had one guy get caught. Hector Santiago, a journeyman, was ejected Sunday for having something on his glove, and we'll now see what the commissioner's office says about it.
On the field, the biggest change we saw was in the walk rate. Prior to last Monday, pitchers were walking 8.8% of the batters they faced. Over the last week, that jumped to 9.7%. The league strikeout rate was unchanged at 23.9%, and league wOBA actually dropped three points even with the uptick in walk rate. It's a week, let's not get it twisted, but at least initially the projected brave new world of contact and singles and movement is not yet upon us.
I know many analysts are backdating, drawing a line in early June and extrapolating from there. Do that, and you find that the changes in June as compared to April and May look a lot like the changes in June as compared to April and May in every other season: fewer strikeouts, more offense. I'm not clear on why I'm to believe the March memorandum emphasizing that the league was going to care about this issue generated no change in behavior, but the June one suddenly caused hundreds of pitchers to straighten up and fly right. It's a little magical thinking for my taste. I think the bright line here has to be the enforcement period.
We'll be having this argument well into football season. For now, be careful about totals, and don't overreact to the particularly bad starts of the more famous villains of the current storyline. Variance swamps everything, and this moment is ripe for making post hoc errors.
7 p.m. Angels (Bundy)/Yankees (M. King) over 10 (-103).
If you watched the Yankees score seven runs in Fenway Park this weekend while being swept, you might have trouble pulling the trigger here. It is in part a weather play -- it is hot and humid here in New York -- and in part a Dylan Bundy fade. Bundy's 2020 season looks like a pandemic fluke, his five homers allowed in 11 starts sticking out like a sore thumb from a career in which he's been reliably taterrific. He's already allowed 14 this year in slightly fewer innings. All balls in the air in the Bronx tonight, even the Nerf ones in play, are a threat to go out. This total is a gift. 1.5 RWBucks.
7 p.m. Red Sox (Richards) -152 over Royals (Duffy).
Danny Duffy is being worked back slowly, so he's likely to go through the lineup just once, leaving the game in the middle innings to Kyle Zimmer or Carlos Hernandez, someone of that ilk. The Royals have lost 17 of 21 games, scoring just a tick over three runs a game while allowing just under six a contest. If there's a concern, it's that the Red Sox worked their bullpen very hard to sweep the Yankees; they could be vulnerable in a close game. This still makes the card for 1 RWBuck.
Pair it with Red Sox first five innings (-137) for 1 RWBuck.
8 p.m. Astros (Greinke) team total over 5.5 (-132) versus Orioles (Eshelman).
The killing machine got gummed up in the cold and damp of Detroit over the weekend, scoring just five runs in 24 innings. Sequencing was part of the problem, as a 2-for-15 performance with runners in scoring position snapped a lot of rallies. It is dry inside Minute Maid Park, where the team has averaged exactly that 5.5 runs per game this year, even without hitting in the bottom of the ninth most of the time. 2 RWBucks.
