If you had put down a wager back in March that the Baltimore Orioles would be ahead of the New York Yankees in the AL East heading into Memorial Day weekend, and that the Texas Rangers would lead the Houston Astros in the AL West, you would have brought home a huge payday. The Tampa Bay Rays have an insane 21-4 home record and would have the best run differential in MLB if they hadn’t gotten a 20-1 beating from Toronto on Tuesday. As you think about MLB betting on the national pastime, starting pitching is one of the top considerations, so look at some hurlers that, at least for now, aren’t getting the job done.
MLB Betting News: Pitchers to Avoid after Week 7 | MLB Lines
Hunter Greene (0-4, 4.68 ERA) and Graham Ashcraft (2-3, 5.57 ERA) (Cincinnati Reds)
Greene’s outings are getting longer, as he threw seven innings against the EYankees on Sunday. However, his ERA has climbed from 2.89 on April 29 to its current size. He’s getting plenty of strikeouts, with three starts in which he has struck out 10, but he’s finding a lot of the plate; he got shelled for six runs on nine hits, including a pair of home runs, in Colorado on May 15, and he allowed two more long balls in a 4-1 loss to the Yankees on Sunday.
After a solid six-inning outing on May 2 in San Diego, Ashcraft’s ERA was an impressive 2.00. Since then, the wheels have fallen off. He has permitted 25 earned runs on 32 hits over 17 ⅓ innings over his last four starts, as the team has a -18 run differential in those games (even though they ended up winning one of them). His strikeout numbers have dwindled, while his home runs permitted have increased.
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Josiah Gray (4-5, 2.65 ERA) (Washington Nationals)
The ERA here isn’t that bad, but there’s another stat for Josiah Gray that should have sports bettors concerned: the high number of walks that he issues. Consider his last start on Sunday against Detroit: he went just five innings even though he only permitted a single run. His pitch count hit 88, and he issued six walks. He did get the win as the offense overcame the bullpen in a 6-4 victory. Walks tend to turn into runs, and he has issued at least three walks in four of his last five starts. The Nationals also aren’t a team doing a whole lot of winning, which means that there are fewer factors to bail out a pitcher who is having a hard time finding the plate.
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J.P. Sears (0-3, 4.70 ERA) (Oakland A’s)
The Athletics are performing at historically poor levels, so you won’t be surprised to learn that the team is 2-8 in Sears’ 10 starts. He doesn’t go particularly deep in games; he has only finished six innings four times. He has given up home runs in eight of his ten starts. He can get hitters to swing and miss; he has three starts in which he struck out at least seven batters, and he hasn’t walked more than two batters in any start. The problem is that he just finds too much of the plate and gives up too many runs for an offense like Oakland to overcome. His ERA was 6.23 at the end of April, though, so there is hope that he will continue to improve and come off this list.
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