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Do you know what heartbreak is? It’s not losing that high school love that you thought was the one. No. Not even close. It’s having the under in a Pirates-Cardinals game and knowing it’s about to go to extra innings with the stupid ghost runner at second base. That’s heartbreak.
I guess that’s my long way of saying we went 1-1 in our last article. We’re 32-21 (+10.0u) for the season as a whole. Let’s dive into Monday’s small slate.
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Colorado Rockies at Cincinnati Reds
Under 9 (+100)
While Great American Ball Park isn’t quite Oracle Park, it definitely isn’t Coors Field, which is crucial when siding with the under in this contest. It likely won’t come as a shock to find out that the Rockies have struggled significantly when hitting away from Colorado so far this season. In fact, the team enters Monday’s slate ranking 29th in average (.223), wOBA (.277) and wRC+ (78) within the split. The Rockies also sit dead-last in MLB with a putrid 58 wRC+ across specifically the last two weeks. To say their lineup is underwhelming would be an understatement.
To be fair, the Reds haven’t been much better in recent games. Over the last 30 days, Cincinnati is slashing .217/.277/.381 as a team with ugly marks in both wOBA (.288) and wRC+ (80). Despite a red-hot Jonathan India and the re-emergence of Spencer Steer, the Reds simply can not put runs on the scoreboard with any level of consistency.
At first glance, that inability to score runs might be tested by the presence of Ryan Feltner and his 5.60 ERA, yet I assure you, the right-hander is better than his surface numbers suggest. Not only are Feltner’s 4.14 xERA and 4.13 SIERA over a full run better than his actual ERA, but his performances away from Coors have tended to be quite good. Heck, in Feltner’s last 17.1 innings on the road, he’s surrendered just two earned runs. Not too shabby.
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Atlanta Braves at Arizona Diamondbacks
Yilber Diaz 6+ Strikeouts (+130)
This is a lofty expectation for a 23-year-old pitcher making his MLB debut, but Diaz has certainly flashed strikeout ability in the minors. To wit, Diaz registered a 34.2% strikeout rate and 15.1% swinging strike rate in his 11 starts at Double-A to start this season. After being promoted to Triple-A, Diaz responded with a 30.8% strikeout rate and a 12.9% swinging strike rate. The RHP is often regarded as a future bullpen piece by scouts in the know, yet I think that just speaks to Diaz’s raw stuff. Equipped with a mid-90s fastball and two whiff-inducing breaking pitches, Diaz’s arsenal is tantalizing — especially to those chasing this over on Monday evening.
Let’s also not forget about the matchup. Thanks to injury, the Braves lineup looks very different from what we saw in 2023 and one major consequence of that shift has been strikeout potential. Over the last 30 days, Atlanta ranks top five in both chase rate (34.3%) and swinging strike rate (13.4%), all while sitting with the league’s third-lowest contact rate (72.9%). Not shockingly, that’s translated into the Braves owning baseball’s second-highest strikeout rate within that same span (26.2%). There are clear holes to exploit in this order.
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All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests.