MLB Best Bet for September 22: Minnesota’s Superior Pitching Extends Boston’s Slump

Minnesota’s Starter Today

For the first game of the Twins-Red Sox doubleheader today, Pablo Lopez will start for the Twins.

Lopez is a good pitcher in part because he has a pitch that he can throw both very often and with success. While batters are going to expect to see his fastball multiple times in a given at-bat, they are powerless against it.

This pitch features high velocity, averaging 95 mph, and good spin. Moreover, he can locate it in different parts of the strike zone. As a result, it yields a .190 BA.

Lopez plays his sweeper, which is the pitch that he throws second-most often, off his fastball and vice versa. The former pitch is much slower. It is hard for batters to adjust to an 84-mph sweeper after they encounter his 95-mph heater. His sweeper is also difficult to hit because he often places it along a border of the strike zone, such that batters have difficulty discerning whether it will land for a ball or a strike.

Given its features, this pitch yields a .229 BA.

Lopez’s fastball and sweeper combine to make up over 60 percent of his arsenal and do the most to explain why his repertoire is a strong one. He also mixes in an effective changeup and strikeout-accumulating curveball, using them against opposite-handed batters.

Lopez’s Great Form

Making use of his strong arsenal, Lopez is pitching especially well in his most recent starts. In his last five starts, he is 4-0 with a 1.30 ERA. During this five-start span, he’s accumulated 35 strikeouts compared to five walks. More extensively, he is 5-0 in his last seven starts.

He has allowed more than two earned runs one time in this seven-start span — in this one exception, he allowed three runs while collecting the win against Tampa Bay. Furthermore, he held four of those seven opponents to zero runs.

Why Lopez Is Reliable Today

You should count on Lopez to thrive today because of his great form.

His great form extends to thriving against lineups that match up well against him by succeeding against his pitches. Evidently, the particular versions of the pitches that he throws — his fastball, for example — are too tough for batters to touch right now.

Lopez is particularly reliable to hit because Boston’s batters are hardly touching anything right now.

Boston enters today’s game having lost four of its last five. The Red Sox have scored a combined total of nine runs in their last five games. They scored no more than three runs in any of those games. Since their ongoing slump began on September 15, the Red Sox are slugging .222 against Lopez’s pitches from righties.

No other team is doing so poorly against them.

Boston’s Starter Today

Nick Pivetta starts for Boston today.

Notwithstanding his last start, in which he allowed three home runs and four earned runs in 4.2 innings against the Rays, Pivetta’s form might not seem so bad. But two of his last three starts came against teams that rank bottom-two in runs per game.

He has benefited largely from facing teams that have poor lineups and/or match up poorly against him.

Matchup Details

In Minnesota, Pivetta finally gets a tough test both in terms of overall quality, as measured by runs per game, and matchup.

The Twins rank ninth in runs per game. Moreover, they match up well against Pivetta in that he throws primarily a fastball, sweeper, and curveball — these pitches make up over 90 percent of his arsenal — and they rank ninth in slugging against them from righties.

In terms of overall quality and matchup potential, they resemble the Astros who slammed Pivetta for five runs in five innings on August 20. Since the end of July, and as evident in his last start, Pivetta has anyhow shown a disturbing tendency to give up home runs, regardless of who he is facing.

Boston’s Awful Bullpen

Ranking fifth-to-last in the season overall and dead-last since the start of August, Boston’s bullpen is undoubtedly worse than Minnesota’s. As evident in stats like blown saves and ERA since the All-Star Break, Boston’s bullpen might be the worst in all of baseball. Injuries and lack of depth have contributed to Boston’s ongoing bullpen collapse.

No doubt, the Red Sox will pursue good free-agent relievers after the season. But for now, they will continue to struggle with what little they have to send onto the mound.

In the first game of this series, the Twins won in extra innings, as they won the bullpen battle thanks to low-ERA studs like Scott Blewett and Cole Sands.

Takeaway

The Twins are clinging to the third Wild Card spot. They’ll need to keep winning games, and we should bet on them, particularly to win this one.

Superior in both the starting pitcher and bullpen battles, they’ll extend Boston’s ongoing slump.

MLB Pick: Twins ML (-128) at BetOnline

Twins ML (-128)

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