Two Unders And Two Moneylines: Dodgers-Phillies, Rays-Blue Jays, Guardians and Mariners

These two lineups combined for seventeen runs on Monday night in this same ballpark. The Phillies won 10-7, the ball flew, and the market responded by hanging a total of nine on the rematch. That is the whole opportunity. Yesterday's box score is doing work that tonight's probable pitchers say it should not be doing, because the man taking the ball for Philadelphia has the best WHIP of any starter on the fifteen-game board. This card is four plays and 7.5 units, and every one of them is a bet on run prevention.

Dodgers-Phillies Under 9: Wheeler Against A Nine

Zack Wheeler is 36 years old and having the best season of his career. Through fifteen starts he owns a 2.13 ERA, a 0.89 WHIP and a .185 opponent average, with 108 strikeouts against 22 walks in 93 innings. That works out to 10.45 strikeouts per nine from a pitcher who has walked barely two men per nine. He is 10-1.

What makes him so hard to plan against is the sheer number of shapes. Wheeler throws six distinct pitches with real usage: a four-seamer 35.9 percent of the time at 95.3 mph, a sinker at 15.6 percent, a splitter at 15.1 percent, a sweeper at 14.4 percent, a cutter at 11.0 percent and a curveball at 8.1 percent. There is no sitting on anything. A lineup gets one look per at-bat and the velocity band runs from 79.9 to 95.3.

Los Angeles counters with Justin Wrobleski, and the left-hander has been quietly excellent in his own right, a 2.69 ERA and a 1.02 WHIP across 100.1 innings with a 10-2 record and a .219 opponent average. He is a two-pitch operator by design, four-seamer 50 percent at 94.3 and slider 29.9 percent at 86.2, and the Phillies against left-handed pitching hit .228 with a .685 OPS. Philadelphia's season-long profile is a .237 team average and a .707 OPS. Two starters with sub-2.70 ERAs, a total of nine, and a lineup with a real platoon hole. Three units on the Under 9 at -120.

Guardians Moneyline: Parker Messick Against A Lineup That Cannot Hit Lefties

Cleveland's Parker Messick has thrown more innings than any starter on this card and given up fewer runs per inning than all but one of them: a 2.73 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP over 112 innings, with 110 strikeouts and a .209 opponent average. He is a genuine six-pitch lefty, four-seamer 34.3 percent, changeup 23.7 percent at 85.6, sinker 17.5 percent, curveball 11.3 percent at 79.1, cutter 7.1 percent, slider 6.1 percent. That changeup usage is the tell. It is a starter kit built for right-handed hitters.

Minnesota against left-handed pitching hits .228 with a .321 on-base percentage and a .680 OPS, and that is before you get to the state of the club. The Twins have lost three straight, sit at 49-52, and carry a 4.75 team ERA with 516 runs allowed, the most of any team in tonight's four games by a comfortable margin. Cleveland hung thirteen on them on Monday.

Minnesota's answer is Kendry Rojas, a 23-year-old lefty in his second big-league start. Rojas has walked 16 hitters in 19.1 innings, a rate above seven per nine, and while the strikeout stuff is loud at 10.24 per nine, that walk rate against a Cleveland team playing at home is how three-run innings get built. A unit and a half on the Guardians moneyline at -141.

Rays-Blue Jays Under 7.5: The Lowest-Scoring Team In Baseball

Toronto has scored 398 runs in 100 games. That is 3.98 per game, and no team in the major leagues has scored fewer. Their season line is .242/.304/.380, and against right-handed pitching, which is what they see tonight, they are at .252 with a .700 OPS. They have lost two in a row.

Tampa Bay sends out Drew Rasmussen, whose 0.95 WHIP is the second-lowest on the entire board behind Wheeler. His shape is unusual and it matters here: the cutter is his most-used pitch at 31.3 percent at 90.1 mph, ahead of a 26.8 percent four-seamer that averages 96.0 mph and a 21.9 percent sinker at 95.5. Hard cutters into a contact-oriented lineup with a .380 slugging percentage produce a lot of weak pull-side outs. He has walked only 17 men in 99.1 innings.

Tampa Bay is not a bombing offense on the road either, hitting .248 with a .693 OPS away from Tropicana. Kevin Gausman will strike out his share, 116 in 112.1 innings on a 38.6 percent splitter at 84.0 mph paired with a 51.3 percent four-seamer, and a strikeout-heavy right-hander against a lineup that struggles to slug is the other half of the case. A unit and a half on the Under 7.5 at -110.

Mariners Moneyline: A Coin-Flip Price On A First-Place Team

Seattle leads the American League West. The Mariners have won three in a row, they are 30-21 at T-Mobile Park, and their 3.57 team ERA ranks fifth in all of baseball. Cincinnati is 45-54, seventeen and a half games out of first, and got shut out 8-0 in this same building on Monday night.

The Reds hit .230 as a team with a .709 OPS, and against right-handed pitching, which is what Luis Castillo is, they drop to .226 with a .690 OPS. That is a lineup that punches out 928 times and does not put enough on base to survive a cold night. T-Mobile Park has never been kind to that profile.

Seattle's own offense is nothing special, and the price reflects it. At -115 the market is asking for barely more than a coin flip from the home team in first place against a fifth-place club that just got blanked. The Mariners' bullpen threw only 10 innings across the last three days, with Andres Munoz, Gabe Speier and Eduard Bazardo each up twice, so the late innings are available. A unit and a half on the Mariners moneyline at -115.

What Can Beat It

Seattle's play carries the sharpest counterargument on the card, and it has a name. Chase Burns is 11-1 with a 2.54 ERA, 118 strikeouts in 102.2 innings and a .206 opponent average, and he throws a four-seamer 57.1 percent of the time at 97.8 mph with a 37.2 percent slider at 90.5. That is the best pitcher Cincinnati has and one of the best on the entire board. Meanwhile Castillo has a 4.93 ERA and has allowed twelve home runs in 87.2 innings. If this game is decided by starting pitching alone, Seattle loses it. The bet is that the lineups and the venue decide it instead, which is why the stake is 1.5 units and not three.

Philadelphia's total has to survive two lineups that travel well. Los Angeles hits .274 with an .807 OPS away from Dodger Stadium and has scored 302 of its 524 runs on the road. Against right-handed pitching they are at .266 with a .786 OPS. Philadelphia at home hits .254 with a .770 OPS. Both bullpens are also stretched: the Phillies used relievers for 12.7 innings over three days, with Orion Kerkering, Jose Alvarado, Jhoan Duran and Chase Shugart all working twice. If either starter comes out in the sixth, the back half of this game gets ugly for an under.

Cleveland's own bat is the problem with the Guardians play. The Guardians score 4.01 runs per game, second-fewest in baseball, and against left-handed pitching they hit .225 with a .659 OPS, the worst platoon split of any team on this card. Rojas is a lefty. Cleveland's relievers also logged 15.7 innings in three days, with Matt Festa, Shawn Armstrong, Franco Aleman and Colin Holderman each up twice. And the Rays-Jays under has one obvious hole: Gausman has already surrendered 15 home runs, and Tampa Bay put seven runs on this same Toronto pitching staff on Monday. Those are the honest risks. The stakes reflect them.

The Bottom Line

Seven and a half units, four plays, one organizing idea: back the arms that suppress runs and fade the lineups that cannot generate them. The Under 9 in Philadelphia at -120 is the flagship at three units, a total set off one loud box score and hung in front of a 2.13 ERA and a 2.69 ERA. The Guardians at -141 ask Parker Messick and his 2.73 ERA to beat a Minnesota lineup with a .680 OPS against lefties. The Under 7.5 in Toronto at -110 is a bet on the lowest-scoring team in baseball staying that way against a 0.95 WHIP. The Mariners at -115 are close to free money on a first-place home team against a club that just got shut out. Run prevention wins more nights than the highlight reel suggests.

The four moneylines are on the companion card: Red Sox, Yankees, Brewers and Diamondbacks moneylines. For more BetLegend picks and verified betting records, visit the homepage or the track record. The full fifteen-game slate is broken down on the MLB Tuesday preview, and Baltimore at Boston gets the long-form treatment on the Featured Game page.