Welcome back to another PrizePicks MLB Wednesday!

There are plenty of games Wednesday, but let’s look at two hitters and two pitchers in the evening window. 

Gausman has been uncharacteristically touched up a bit across the last 30 days.

But Wednesday night’s matchup against the Guardians is a fantastic get-right spot for him. The Cleveland lineup is quite watered down between the departures of Amed Rosario and Josh Bell, while Josh Naylor is banged up and on the injured list. 

Despite Gausman’s more recent struggles he still struck out 33% of hitters across the last 30 days, which is right in line with his 32% season average.

Three hitters in the projected Cleveland lineup will be seeing Gausman for the first time in their respective careers and I think that’s another advantage for Gausman.

Allen is a young pitcher with a ton of upside, but I’m not certain this is the spot to back him.

The southpaw has struck out a respectable 23% of right-handed hitters this season, but these Blue Jays are elite at making contact against lefties. The first five hitters in the projected Toronto lineup have no worse than an 18% strikeout rate against left-handed pitchers across the last two seasons.

We’ve seen a few spike games from Red Sox righty Nick Pivetta over the summer, but even during his best stretches struggles against left-handed hitters have been a constant issue.

Pivetta owns a .277 ISO, .342 wOBA, and an 11% barrel rate with high fly ball and hard-contact rates against lefties this season. We also know that Pivetta will throw roughly 50% of fastballs to lefties, and across the last 30 days, that number has jumped to almost 60%. 

The Royals have been playing well and so has Melendez. Kansas City has won eight of its last 11 games, while Melendez has eclipsed this number in four of his last five games while hitting two home runs during the stretch. 

Melendez (a lefty) is a very good right-handed fastball hitter. Since the beginning of 2022, he owns a 58% hard-hit rate, a 13% barrel rate, and leads the KC projected lineup in both fly ball and line-drive rates against right-handed fastballs.

Alex Faedo does not walk hitters and only strikes out 21% of them. That means the ball is in play when he’s on the mound. Correa projects to bat cleanup in the Twins lineup behind three lefties who all have wOBAs well over .300 against right-handed pitching.

Faedo has given up a barrel rate 7% higher to right-handed hitters compared to lefties this season. This bodes well for Correa, who has a solid .181 ISO vs. right-handers despite a disappointing season to date.

Maybe he’s finally starting to heat up, as Correa collected hits in four-straight games and drove in seven runs during the stretch.