Misiorowski Has A 1.62 ERA At Home, And The Cubs Team Total Under Is Three Units

Two plays today and one of them is a price I would normally walk past. One team total and one side, first pitch at 6:40 pm eastern in Detroit and 7:40 pm eastern in Milwaukee.

Four units to win against 11.25 units of risk, which puts the break even at 73.77 percent. That is the highest bar this card has carried all season, and it is not close. There is one reason a number that steep is on the page at all, and his name is Jacob Misiorowski.

The Card And The Math

Both prices are minus numbers, so those unit figures are the amount being won and not the amount being put up. There is no plus money leg to hold the average down.

How The Units Are Counted

The Cubs team total at -330 needs 76.74 percent. The Tigers at -135 need 57.45 percent. The card, 11.25 divided by 15.25, needs 73.77 percent.

The split is worth saying out loud because it is extreme. The team total is 88 percent of the risk on this card and the Tigers are 12. If the team total loses, the Tigers winning still leaves the day down 8.90 units. This is a one bet day with a small side attached, and calling it a two play card slightly oversells the second one.

Misiorowski At Home

Everything on the big ticket runs through one arm, so start with the arm. Jacob Misiorowski has made 26 starts and thrown 155.0 innings with a 1.97 ERA, a 0.79 WHIP, 227 strikeouts against 39 walks and opponents hitting .155 off him. That is 13.18 strikeouts per nine and fewer than four baserunners allowed in an average start.

At American Family Field it gets better. 83.1 innings at home this season, a 1.62 ERA, a 0.76 WHIP, a .158 opponent average and 131 of his 227 strikeouts. On the road he is at 2.39 across 71.2 innings. That is not a rounding error, it is more than three quarters of a run.

Behind him Milwaukee has the best run prevention on this card, a 3.54 staff ERA allowing 3.87 runs a game on a 1.19 WHIP, and the Brewers are 48-25 at home on the way to 89-56. If Misiorowski goes six and hands over a lead, the group that finishes it produced those numbers too.

One more thing this ticket does not care about: what Milwaukee scores. A team total under is only a bet on the Cubs. The Brewers could put up ten and it would not touch the ticket.

The Number That Argues Against It

Here is the number that should make you uncomfortable, and it goes near the top rather than buried at the bottom.

The Cubs score 5.32 runs a game, the highest figure of any club involved in this card, on a .770 team OPS. They have been held to 4 runs or fewer in 67 of 145 games this season, which is 46.21 percent. The price needs 76.74 percent. That is a thirty point gap between the season baseline and what you are being asked to pay for, and no honest write up of this bet can skip past it.

The things that narrow it are specific rather than general. Chicago drops from a .809 OPS against left handed pitching to a .756 against right handers, and Misiorowski is a right hander. In four games at American Family Field this season the Cubs have scored 2, 8, 4 and 3, so three of the four land under this number. Chicago is 40-33 away from Wrigley, which is fine rather than fearsome.

None of that gets you to 76.74 percent on its own. Only the pitcher does.

Six Days Ago At Wrigley

The best argument against this ticket is six days old and it is a good one.

On September 2 at Wrigley Field the Brewers won 9 to 5, and the Cubs hung 5 earned runs on Misiorowski in 4.0 innings. It was his shortest and worst start in over a month, and the run total they put up that day is exactly one more than this number needs. If that game was the league finally catching up to a rookie who had been running hot, then this ticket was dead before it was written.

The case for taking it anyway is the split above. His four starts before that one went 6.0 innings each and allowed 3, 1, 0 and 2 earned runs. The bad one came at Wrigley, in the ballpark where he has been worse all year, against the club that sees him more than anybody. Tonight the venue flips to the building where he owns a 1.62 ERA.

That is the whole bet. If you do not believe the home split is real, do not play it.

The Tigers Rematch

The small side is a rerun. These same two starters faced each other on September 2 at Target Field and Detroit won 11 to 6. Drew Anderson gave up 1 earned run in 5.2 innings. Dean Kremer gave up 4 in 4.0. Six days later they go again, and the venue moves to Comerica Park.

Anderson has 9 starts, 92.1 innings, a 3.80 ERA, a 1.32 WHIP and 101 strikeouts against 39 walks with opponents hitting .238. The 9.84 strikeouts per nine is the part of the profile that travels between ballparks.

Kremer came over from Baltimore on August 1 and has thrown 30.2 innings across 6 starts with a 4.99 ERA. His 1.24 WHIP and .221 opponent average are better than that, so there is some bad luck in the number, but the direction of travel is not good: 5.1 innings and 2 earned, then 4.0 and 5, then 4.0 and 4. He has not finished the fifth inning in either of his last two starts, which puts a 4.66 ERA staff into the game early.

The staffs are where the real separation is. Detroit carries a 3.69 ERA, a 1.23 WHIP and allows 4.01 runs a game. Minnesota is at 4.66, a 1.38 WHIP and 4.96 allowed. That is close to a run a game across a full season between these two pitching staffs, and it does not show up in the standings because the Tigers do not score.

The Argument Against The Tigers

Detroit is 66-78 and Minnesota is 68-76, so the worse club is laying the price. That is the first problem.

The second is the offense. Minnesota scores 4.63 a game on a .727 OPS. Detroit scores 4.36 on a .710. The team being laid has the weaker lineup, which is the same uncomfortable shape as any short favourite that cannot hit.

The third is the venue that is supposed to help. Detroit is 35-35 at Comerica Park, exactly .500, and a -135 favourite needs 57.45 percent. There is nothing in that home record that gets you there by itself.

What gets me on it is the other side of the trip. Minnesota is 30-42 on the road, Kremer has not finished five innings in three weeks, and the last time these two lined up with these two starters the Tigers scored 11.

Bottom Line

Four units to win against 11.25 at risk, needing 73.77 percent. The Cubs team total under 4.5 is 88 percent of that risk and it is a bet on Jacob Misiorowski at American Family Field, where he has a 1.62 ERA, a 0.76 WHIP and 131 strikeouts in 83.1 innings, and on nothing else. The Cubs season rate of 46.21 percent under this number is nowhere near the price, so the pitcher has to be the difference or the ticket does not make sense.

The Tigers at -135 are the small one and the easier one to explain: a rematch of a game Detroit won 11 to 6 six days ago with the same two arms, a staff a full run better, and a Twins club that is 30-42 away from Target Field.

If this day goes wrong it goes wrong in Milwaukee, and it goes wrong in the first four innings.

Both plays were on the verified record with their prices before first pitch, and both get graded there whether they win or lose.

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