This article is part of our MLB Picks series.
Angels-Red Sox & Yankees-Guardians
MLB Expert Picks & Props, April 14
Spring has kind of sort of kind of arrived here in the Northeast. I define that as that time of year when we get more 65-degree sunny days than 45-degree and rainy ones, and we seem to have turned that corner. Plus we now have enough MLB games under our belts that we can spot a few trends. Let's try to ride a couple with today's picks.
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Los Angeles Angels at Boston Red Sox
Road teams have gotten off to a flying start in 2024, going 110-93 outright through Friday with a 12.74 percent Return on Investment (ROI). Visitors playing within their league but not from the same division account for basically all of that record, as they sit at 55-38 with a ginormous 24.01 percent ROI. Will this trend hold up all season? Probably not, but for now it gives a good starting point to look a little deeper. Sunday will mark the sixth and final meeting between these two squads (hey, unless they meet in the playoffs). The Angels looked like a potential dumpster fire heading into the season after Shohei Ohtani took his talents to actual Los Angeles, but so far so good. Mike Trout remains healthy and has so far played like … Mike Trout, popping off to a .283/.356/.679 triple slash with six homers. That those six homers have only produced 9 RBI is the flip side of the coin that has always plagued this team in his years in Anaheim. They have basically a league average wRC+ outside of Trout, though Logan O'Hoppe (.435 wOBA) and Taylor Ward (.404 wOBA) have gotten off to fast starts as well.
Two Angels starting pitchers look good out of the gate, and one of them, Tyler Anderson, takes the hill today. The lefty parlayed a big 2022 in Dodger blue to sign a three-year, $39 million contract with the Angels, and then floundered to a 5.43 ERA, pretty much confirmed by a 4.96 xERA and 4.77 SIERA. But he has backed up a strong spring training with two good starts so far, having allowed zero runs through 14 innings. Anderson has pitched to contact with just eight strikeouts and three walks through 51 plate appearances, but has induced very weak contact with a 25 percent HardHit% and just a 84.9 MPH average exit velocity. This all does resemble "good" Tyler Anderson, but as with any lefty at Fenway, the key is keeping the ball off the Green Monster and in the yard.
The Red Sox have not hit lefties well in 2004, producing a .233/.320/.353 line, good for just a 91 wRC+. Tyler O'Neill has led the Boston offense this season with Rafael Devers in and out of the lineup, and feels like someone who mashes southpaws. But he actually has relatively minimal career splits, .351 wOBA vs. lefties and .333 vs. righties with an identical .249 Avg vs both.
MLB Pick for Angels at Red Sox
Angels +110
Yankees at Guardians
With road teams thriving, it will shock no one that playing them on the run line has worked as well. Overall away teams on the run line have gone 121-82 with a 14.79 percent ROI through Friday. Specifying that they give the 1.5 runs but have plus money set the overall back to 37-36 but ups the ROI to 22.44%. Which brings us to the Yankees visiting The Land. They have had their historic matchups here before, from bug attacks to Wild Things.
Sunday features a battle of inconsistent lefties, Nestor Cortes for the Yankees vs. Logan Allen for the Guardians. Cortes began with two shaky efforts before putting it all together in an eight-inning, two-hit, no-run gem vs. the Marlins. He carries a low 18.1 perctnt K rate, considerably off his 25.1 percent career mark, though his SwStk% of 10.2 percent sits just below his 10.5 percent norm, perhaps suggesting an uptick in Ks will follow.
Allen has taken the opposite path through three starts, looking great in his first two then getting pounded by an impossibly bad White Sox lineup for five runs and seven hits in four innings. Overall he sports a 4.60 ERA vs a 3.68 SIERA, and carrying a theme from all the starters covered today, a mediocre 19.4 percent K rate.
Both teams have lit up lefties early, 128 wRC+ for Cleveland, 123 for the Yankees. I trust the Yankees lineup way more to keep this up as they employ Aaron Judge among others and have done it vs. the likes of Framber Valdez and Jesus Luzardo as opposed to the Guardians menu of random A's and White Sox cannon fodder.
MLB Pick for Yankees at Guardians
Yankees -1.5 Run Line, +124
