Can We Locate the King of the Diamond as MLB First Half Closes

Happy Friday everyone! We’ve reached the end of the first half of the MLB season with the final weekend of games before the All-Star Break in Atlanta. To celebrate, we are giving a bonus play today, attempting to win the King of the Diamond DraftKings promo. We also have some picks for the WNBA slate and UFC Fight Night for Saturday night.

As per our Friday staple, we have a Bear-Necessities 1:1 interview with a betting influencer as Yahoo Sports Senior Analyst Ben Fawkes joins the newsletter.

We will have weekend plays for the Scottish Open once the 2nd round is complete and the cut is made, so make sure to follow me on twitter at @DavidBearman for weekend golf plays.

When we are handicapping golf, as you have seen in this column every week, we have the “Scottie Scheffler conundrum”, where we love to play him, but realize the value of betting him at +280 isn’t good. Well, we have a similar, but different issue with Pirates ace Paul Skenes, who happens to be on the mound tonight at Minnesota.

There’s no doubt that Skenes is one of the best pitchers in baseball, sporting a 1.94 ERA (4th lowest in MLB), holding batters to a .186 BA (4th best) and .280 Slugging Pct (2nd best). The issue? His team is only scoring 3.26 runs per game when he pitches, hence only 4 wins this season.

Just look at his last two starts: 5 IP each, 0 ER, 1 BB, 15 K’s, no decision in either game as both games were 0-0 when he left and ended 1-0.

The other issue at play is he just hasn’t gone deep in games recently, failing to go past 6 innings in each of his last five starts. That puts us at risk with bullpens when placing full game bets. Which takes us back to “how to play his starts?”

We love isolating situations in baseball and will do that here. The Twins have been struggling at the plate, striking out at a 25% clip over the last 15 games. What I like the most about this matchup is how few Twins have seen the 2nd-year Skenes before. The current roster has totaled 5 plate appearances vs. the LSU standout, meaning, most have never faced him.

There are two plays I like here, one slightly more than the other. His over/under for ERs allowed is 1.5 (-130). He’s allowed less than 2 ERs in 9 of his last 11 starts, dating back to mid May and against much better lineups. Playing ERs helps us avoid any issues with bad plays in the field that lead to runs against the putcher.

Skenes strikeout prop, against a Twins team that has been doing that a lot lately, is 6.5 (over -130). He’s hit this in 7 of his last 10 starts, even with not having gone deep into many games lately. He had 10 K’s in his last start in 5 innings and only facing 20 batters.

With two props that I like, it opens the door for some Same Game Parlays if you find a third leg you like. I would still avoid any side in the game, but a first 5 innings under could be in play here.

Pick: Like both Skenes u1.5 ERs (-130) and o6.5 K’s (-130).