San Diego Padres at San Francisco Giants
Over/Under: 8
First pitch: 6:45 p.m. PT
Probable pitchers: Chris Paddack (4-4, 2.97) vs. Tyler Beede (0-2, 8.15 ERA)
The National League has itself another stellar rookie class for the second year in a row. One — and maybe both by season’s end — has shined as much as them all in the early going.
That would be Paddack, who was simply fantastic in his first two months as a big-leaguer. He’s hit a bit of rough patch as of late, yielding 10 runs (nine earned) across his last pair of outings, after allowing 11 earned runs in his first nine starts combined.
Luckily, Paddack has the moxie and mindset to rebound right away and he’ll have the right opponent to accomplish this. As you may have noticed, I’ve taken my fair share of Giants unders this year, in large part due to their dead-bat offense.
San Francisco has scored the second-fewest runs in the league and their .651 team OPS is second from the bottom in all of baseball. As also covered before in this column, the Giants are even less intimidating in their pitcher-friendly home ballpark, where they have the fewest homers (19) and worst team OPS (.596). That’ll be huge for the San Diego right-hander considering the long ball has been a primary issue in his last two starts.
Even if Paddack can play a starring role for the under, some satisfactory work from the other rookie starter in this matchup will be needed to cash this bet.
Beede is only making his sixth career start and fourth of the campaign, but he’s shown some promise despite his ghastly 8.15 ERA. There’s no way he’s going to finish even close to that mark, however.
In his most recent assignment, Beede was tagged for six runs (five earned), but the effort still represented progress for the former first-round draft pick.
He was able to complete five innings again for the second consecutive start — his first two such outings in which he’s gone that deep in a ballgame. While that doesn’t sound like much, it does indicate Beede is getting closer to molding himself into a regular dependable starting pitcher, which I know is how he’ll end up.
I think he can provide something at least decent tonight while Paddack does most of the rest. Play: UNDER 8 (-115)
Yesterday’s Result: Rangers-Red Sox Under 8 (WIN)
Zylbert’s 2019 MLB Over/Under Betting Record*: 37-31-6, +2.65 units
*Each bet graded as if it were to win 1 unit