Thursday night was not a good one on the diamond. Hogan Harris didn't walk a batter against the Astros, Pablo Lopez came up a strikeout shy despite piling up six through the first three innings, and the Rays trailed through five.
But we still own a solid 7-5 record for the week. We'll look to build on that and finish on a high note with three plays for Friday night's slate of games.
White Sox (+130) @ Twins (-150)
Lance Lynn is having a truly miserable season. The veteran righty owns a putrid 6.07 ERA and has conceded at least three runs in 14 of 19 starts.
The normally reliable Lynn is not showing any signs of progress. In fact, things are getting worse. He has allowed three runs or more in seven of his past eight starts.
I expect his struggles will continue Friday night against the Twins. They strike out a lot but have plenty of pop and are really heating up at the dish.
The Twins rank top 10 in xwOBA against righties in July and have been generating insane power. They've already hit 18 homers and sit only 0.1% behind the Braves for top spot in barrel rate.
Lynn has allowed 31 hits and 18 earned runs over his past four starts against Minnesota dating back to last season. Given his struggles, and the Twins' current form, things figure to look bleak once again.
Assuming the Twins can make some noise at the plate, grabbing and holding a lead through five innings should be no problem.
Joe Ryan is littering the zone with strikes right now and inducing a lot of swings and misses. He has nasty stuff, against which the White Sox should have a world of problems generating offense.
The White Sox sit 27th in xwOBA (.269) against right-handed pitching this month, slotting just ahead of the Athletics and Nationals.
We know Lynn is giving up runs in bunches, and I just don't see the White Sox keeping up - especially against a talent like Ryan.
Look for the Twins to lead through five.
Bet: Twins F5 -0.5 (-105, playable to -120)
Ben Lively over 1.5 walks
Lively has really struggled with control of late. He has allowed at least two walks in five of the past eight starts, which is a decent sell in itself.
The numbers are even better when you consider he was removed from his last start due to potential injury after just 57 pitches. If we exclude that game, where Lively was sold an inning or two short, we're looking at an over in five of seven.
The underlying metrics suggest that is no fluke. Excluding balls put in play, 44.4% of his pitches the past month have been balls. That's a very high clip.
He could be in a world of trouble going up against a Diamondbacks team that profiles perfectly to exploit his control issues. They rank bottom five in swing rate against righties this season, meaning they're patient at the dish and take a lot of pitches.
If Lively continues to have problems hitting his spot, the Diamondbacks will happily sit on their hands and let the walks pile up.
Odds: -115 (playable to -130)
Clarke Schmidt under 17.5 outs
It's not every day you want to target a pitching under against the Royals. There are exceptions to everything, though, and we're going to make one here for Schmidt.
He has recorded 17 outs or fewer in eight of his past 10 starts and all but three on the season. His average pitch count (80.2) is so low that he doesn't have much margin for error, if any, to complete six innings.
The Royals are not a good offensive team, but that doesn't necessarily matter. Just two weeks ago, Schmidt failed to complete six innings against an Athletics team that ranks last in batting average, slugging, and runs per game.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone is very quick to pull the plug on Schmidt. With the team coming off a rest day, the bullpen will be fresh and ready to go this evening. Boone won't feel as if there's a need to let Schmidt fight through any potential issues and grind out as many innings as possible.
So long as the Royals don't swing out of their boots on the first pitch and consistently blast grounders into the defense early in counts, I have a hard time seeing Schmidt complete a full six.
Odds: -115 (playable to -125)
Todd Cordell is a sports betting writer at theScore. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @ToddCordell.
