There is nothing like Friday baseball at the ballpark with your friends and family, and we have another great MLB slate on deck! We have a lot of solid pitchers going today, interesting matchups, and I couldn’t wait to dig into the props last night.
Coming off a tough day yesterday on a small slate, we are looking to get back in the winner's column!
Kutter Crawford Will Need His Slider Working
Kutter Crawford has been in fantastic form all year, holding 12 of 15 quality starts, and has been very impressive on the road. On the road, Kutter holds a 2.62 ERA, compared to 4.15 at home.
In 34 innings pitched on the road he has allowed 10 ER, 3 home runs, and is holding batters to .214. In the month of June, he has 3 starts, allowing .206 BA, with 22 strikeouts in 18 innings pitched.
At home vs RHP, the Reds have the second highest strikeout rate the entire season at 27%. Over their last 14 days they have been worse sitting at 30%, leading the majors. They have not seen RHP well all-season sitting 3rd to last in average at home hitting .214.
Crawford has 3 main pitches, fastball, cutter, and slider. What is interesting in the data is that almost every Reds hitter strikes out less to the fastball and cutter, than they do to their overall strikeout percentage. Where they drop off is against the slider, which he surely knows, and should use as his 3rd strike pitch to get these batters out.
The Reds hit the fastball fairly well and strike out less on this pitch. When they see a slider, they have one batter under 20% strikeout rate and have 9 batters with a strikeout rate of 30% or more! Their wOBA gets even worse against this pitch as well. I expect to see a good number of sliders and split fingers to get these Reds to chase and strikeout as they have all season.
Live player props data coming soon for Kutter Crawford.
Crawford Poised to Pitch into Later Innings
On the season Crawford has hit 17 innings in 12 of 15 starts, and has been even better on the road, hitting 5 of 6 starts, 4 hitting 18. He averages 92.7 pitches on the road with a 28% called strike plus whiff rate, with 3 games on the road over a 30% CSW. He holds a .225 batting average against, a 25% K rate, and a 1.15 WHIP on the season.
The Reds offense has been heating up lately but have some room for regression. Great American Ballpark can be a tough place to pitch. Runs can be scored in this ballpark, sitting at one of the highest run rates in baseball.
For the entire season vs RHP, Reds rank 29th in Avg (.221), 28th in OB%, 27th in wRC+, and 25th in both OPS and BABIP. If he can get them to swing and miss and keep them off the bases, he has a good shot to see the late 6th!
My Best Bet: Kutter Crawford (Bos) o16.5 Outs (-123) Caesars
