Originally Posted by
posey
4/30
White Sox (C. Sale) @ Twins (T. May)
Twins ML +147
Starters:
Sale is 2-0 in 3 starts this season and already looking like the dominant starter from recent seasons. He hasn’t been K-ing as much as in previous years until now, but he has walked less guys, too. He already was up against the Twins a few weeks back and held them to 5 hits and 1 ER in 6.0 IP. The White Sox are 8-1 with Sale against the Twins. This stands out as a reason for not picking the Twins. Nonetheless I will do it. First reason is that he has ‚only‘ a 3.44 ERA since 2012 at Target Field. Suzuki, Hunter, Escobar and Plouffe have respectable stats against him. Sale has gotten a suspension for his role in the brawl with the Royals, but he is allowed to start until the process is complete. Maybe this rattles him a little bit, at least I give this a 50-50 chance of doing so.
Twins starter Trevor May looks like a douchebag when looking at his ERA. He started 12 games for the Twins in his career and they won 5 and lost 7. His ERA stands at 4.91, which looks quite bad. But he hasn’t walked many guys (3.3 BB%) and struck out batters at a respectable rate (21.3%). His WHIP looks very solid thusfar (1.16) and he’s allowed only 1 HR in 14.2 IP. His main problems have consisted with runners on base (57.7% LOB). Against a shaky White Sox offense he has the chance to improve his ERA IMO, although I may be quite alone with that opinion. He is a FB/Changeup guy, a combination the White Sox had some trouble with this season. He has faced some of the White Sox batters, but none to a rate that I would call it relevant. May was injured in his last start but according to his own words he is at 100% again.
Batting:
Thusfar the White Sox feature one of the worst offenses in the AL. They average only 3.4 runs a game (3.2 on the road), out of their 17 games they scored 2 runs or less 10 times already. They have a AVG of .250 against RHP this season, but only 3 guys (Cabrera, Abreu, Garcia) have been batting better than .240 (with at least 20 PAs). LaRoche, Eaton, Ramirez and Gillaspie have been quite bad in this category, all batting .222 or worse. They strike out a lot, too, as their K% is at .221. The White Sox offense has talent, but while they can demolish anybody on a good day, they can also suck the next day against a weaker pitcher (Milone held them scoreless in 7.2 IP with 2 H, 2BB, 0 ER and 7 K). This is one of my main points for the bet. The White Sox lineup looks to shaky to not go against them with odds of +147, no matter who is starting. The White Sox have good stats with men on base or RISP, but to profit from that they have to get on base first. They are the 2nd worst team in the whole league with bases empty. I can imagine the White Sox a little bit out of rhythm because of the two delayed games at Baltimore. The last game in front of an empty crowd saw them only getting 4 hits and 1 walk against Ubaldo Jimenez, Kevin Gausman and Zach Britton.
The Twins haven’t done much better overall. Against LHP they looked mediocre thusfar as a team, batting .248 with a 20.1 K% (players with 20 PAs or more). Arcia, Dozier, Robinson, Santana and especially Vargas (.304) and Mauer (.342) have done well against LHP, while Suzuki, Plouffe (.198), Hunter (.148) and Escobar (.130) have done bad against them. But as you can see in my pitcher report, those 4 guys are exactly those who have done well against Chris Sale over their career. The Twins offense, which averages 3.5 runs per game, is significantly better at home, where they average 4.4 runs per game. After being held scoreless by the Mariners and King Felix on April 24th, they were up against James Paxton (LHP, W), Roenis Elias (LHP, W), David Price (LHP, L), Anibal Sanchez (RHP, W) and Shane Greene (RHP, L). It looks like their offense came alive in those, as they scored 26 runs and had at least 9 hits in each of those games. Most of the guys they faced in the last 5 are either proven or quite talented, so this achievement is quite respectable and all in all this drives me to the opinion that the Twins should be able to score some runs against Sale, too. They have similar stats like the White Sox with RISP.
Bullpens:
Let’s face it, the White Sox have a much better bullpen than the Twins. Well, maybe the Twins have one of the worst BPs in the MLB. The White Sox pen has much better stats in nearly all categories than the Twins. The White Sox BP is quite rested, but the Twins BP has pitched 19.2 since Saturday and has blown a quite safe lead yesterday against the Tigers, but the season is still young and therefore I don’t put too much weight on that. This game should be mainly decided by the starters and the lineups, but of course it’s no question that the Twins BP could suck again. But the Twins are dogs for a reason, although I see value in the pick overall.
The Twins have nothing to lose against Sale and I like those spots.
Some more facts:
- White Sox are 13-20 on the ML (+20.4% ROI on the opp) and 13-20 on the RL (+30.0% ROI on the opp) when Sale started for them in a road game with a temperature of 65° F or more (it looks like the temp. will be at 67° F @ MIN)
- White Sox are 5-6 on the ML (+23.0% ROI on the opp) and 4-7 on the RL (+18.2% ROI on the opp) as road favs against teams from the AL Central when Sale started for them and they are 3-6 in the last 9 of those games
- White Sox are 29-52 on the ML (+11.7% ROI on the opp) in 81 road games since 2012 when the game was the first game of a series; they are 9-10 on the ML (+7.9% ROI on the opp) at the Twins in those
- White Sox are 5-13 on the ML (+17.4% ROI on the opp) on the road since August 2013 against a team from the AL when they lost the previous game with a difference of 4 or more runs
- White Sox are 8-21 on the ML (+18.5% ROI on the opp) on the road since July 2012 against a team from the AL Central when they scored 2 runs or less in their previous game
- Twins are 10-4 on the ML (+54.6% ROI) at home since 2013 against a team from the AL Central when they scored 7 or more runs in their previous game
- Twins are 10-8 on the ML (+19.6% ROI) at home since July 2012 against a team from the AL Central when they allowed 8 runs or more in their previous game
- Twins are 24-11 on the ML (+33.4% ROI) at home since 2012 between April and June against teams with a losing record
- Home Dogs (odds of +100 or bigger) are 20-16 on the ML (+25.4% ROI) since 2004 from April to August when the game is the first game of the series between two division rivals, when both teams lost their previous game with 3 runs or more and the total of the game is below 9.5