MLB Best Bet for September 15: It’s a Soporific Steel City on Sunday

What Makes Brady Singer Reliable

Brady Singer will start for the Royals today.

When you are looking for a starting pitcher to trust, you want to see one who has a pitch that he can frequently rely on to limit damage and ultimately get outs. Singer has two such pitches: his sinker, which he throws 41 percent of the time, and his slider, which he throws nearly as often.

He does a good job of commanding both pitches, distributing them ably along both sides of the plate. Compared to his sinker, his slider is likelier to find the lower corners of the strike zone.

In terms of velocity, his slider contrasts nicely with his sinker, which he throws harder. By varying velocity and location, Singer keeps hitters off-balance. The results speak for themselves: his sinker yields a .378 slugging rate; opponents slug .362 against his slider.

Match-Up Details

Singer matches up well against the Pirates because he primarily throws a sinker, slider, and fastball – these three pitches combine to make up over 93 percent of his arsenal.

Pittsburgh ranks 28th with a .366 slugging rate against these pitches from righties.

The Matchup Matters

Match-up details are decisive when predicting Singer’s performance.

He reliably thrives against teams that match up poorly against him. Consider the teams that rank bottom-five against his favorite pitches from righties: the Tigers, Rays, Pirates, Rangers, and White Sox.

Against these teams this year, he has allowed 11 earned runs in 51.1 innings. That is an average of less than one earned run allowed in every four innings. He’s done an almost perfect job of limiting each of those teams to one earned run in at least five innings of work against them.

Pittsburgh’s Lineup

Of all the times to back Singer against a team that matches up so poorly against him, today’s game presents an especially strong opportunity because of the form of Pittsburgh’s lineup.

The Pirates are slumping. In their last three games, they’ve scored a combined total of seven runs. They have failed to exceed three runs in any of those games. They are failing to hit pitchers, such as Alec Marsh who has a 4.52 ERA, who are not good. And now they have to deal with Singer.

Pittsburgh’s Starter

Pittsburgh’s starting pitcher today is Jared Jones. He will help keep the first half of this game low-scoring.

Jones is a 23-year-old stud who is thriving in his first professional season, as opposing lineups are struggling to figure him out. Like Singer, he relies heavily on two pitches. Jones mainly throws a fastball and slider. These two pitches are fast, and they have a lot of spin.

If batters are able to keep up with them, despite their strong velocity, they will likely struggle to track their location because of their spin.

Jones also mixes in a curveball and changeup. He especially likes to attack opposite-handed batters with both pitches. In particular, his curveball is a knee-bender with its low velocity, which is tough for batters to adjust to after they see his high-velo fastball.

Jones’ Dominance at Home

Jared Jones is coming off a terrific start at home in which he allowed two earned runs in seven innings to the Nationals. This last start presents no exception for Jones: he regularly thrives at home.

In front of the Pittsburgh faithful, he is allowing a 2.77 ERA this season.

Jones has had one bad performance at home this year. This came against the Cubs. The Cubs present an exception because they are a division rival of Pittsburgh and benefit from added familiarity. Before succeeding one time against Jones in Pittsburgh, they had already faced him two times. Conversely, Royals batters have yet to face the rookie once this season.

Jones has allowed as many as three runs at home in one other start this year. In that start, back in May against San Francisco, he allowed two of those runs in the sixth inning. This fact helps explain why I want to focus on the first five innings by only playing the first half.

Royals Batters Hate Day-Time Games

Kansas City’s lineup is in an awful spot today because today’s game takes place during the day. Whereas the Royals slug .426 during the night, their slugging rate is .395 during the day. Their struggles during the day become most transparent when we zero in on their Sunday performances.

In the second half of the season, they’ve played on Sunday seven times. These were all day games and series finales. They exceeded three runs in two of those games.

In their first such game, they scored all four runs after the fifth inning – they evidently needed time to wake up. Their second such game was in a super hitters-friendly ballpark – in Cincinnati. Pittsburgh’s ballpark, on the contrary, is known to be very pitcher-friendly. In this second game, they thrived against an awful Cincinnati reliever. Pittsburgh has some terrible relievers, so we want to stick to relying on its excellent starter.

Takeaway

Brady Singer will take advantage of a Pirates lineup that matches up poorly against him and that is anyhow slumping. Jared Jones will continue thriving at home, especially against a Royals lineup that hates the daytime.

We want to trust both starters and avoid relying on any relievers. For the above reasons, you should bet on a low-scoring first five innings.

MLB Pick: First-Half Under 4.5 (-125) at BetOnline

First-Half Under 4.5 (-125)

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