Welcome back to another breakdown of the MLB PrizePicks board.
We have just four baseball games on the schedule today, with the Diamondbacks and Yankees getting it started at 1:05 p.m. ET.
Despite the short slate, there are still some strong spots to target this evening when building out PrizePicks cards.
Let’s jump right into it.
Sandoval has taken a big step backward after an excellent season last year.
His SIERA is all the way up at 4.90 this season, and he has posted a below average 19.8% strikeout rate and walked far too many at 10.8%.
He has recorded more than 6.5 strikeouts in just six of his 27 starts.
Today, he gets a matchup against the Rangers, who have been one of the best offenses in baseball this season.
Against left-handed pitching, they rank fourth in MLB in wOBA (.346) and wRC+ (119). They have also struck out at the ninth-lowest rate (21.6%) against lefties.
There is a good chance they can knock Sandoval around a bit and elevate his pitch count quickly.
Sandoval probably needs to pitch into the seventh inning to top this projection, and I just don’t see that as a likely outcome.
Gray owns a below-average 21.3% strikeout rate this season, and he has been in extremely poor form recently.
Over his last three starts, he has allowed 11 runs in just 8.2 innings.
He posted just a 14.8% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate, forcing the Rangers to pull him before the end of the fourth inning in all three starts.
The Rangers should continue to have a quick hook here as they are in a dog fight for the AL West division crown.
Gray has recorded more than 5.5 strikeouts in just 10 of his 28 starts this season.
Maybe Gray gets back on track in a good matchup with whatever is left of this Angels lineup, but I am willing to roll the dice that he just isn’t quite right at this moment.
I think he records less than 5.5 strikeouts today.
Snell is a virtual lock to win the NL Cy Young Award.
He owns a 2.33 ERA on the season and he ranks second in MLB with a 31.7% strikeout rate.
He has one of the longest leashes in baseball, as he has averaged 99 pitches and 5.61 innings per start this season.
Today, he gets a matchup against the Giants, who own just a .302 wOBA and 91 wRC+ against left-handed pitching this season.
They have struck out at the fifth-highest rate (25.2%) in the league when facing a lefty.
Six of the nine hitters in the Giants’ projected lineup have struck out over 23% of the time versus southpaws this season.
Marco Luciano, one of the other three projected hitters, struck out over 35% of the time in Triple-A this season and nearly 30% of the time in Double-A.
Snell has recorded at least 8 strikeouts in 15 of his 31 starts this season, including each of his last six starts.
Two of the starts where he recorded at least 8 strikeouts were against the Giants.
He struck out eight Giants in an outing earlier this month, and he struck out 11 of them in a start back in June.
I like him to record more than eight strikeouts again today.