BEST LINES: Pinnacle +102 Bet365  -105 SportsInteraction +115 5DIMES +105

Posted at 10:50 AM EST.

2:10 PM EST. There are many things that come into play here. First, with 16 wins in 43 road games, the South Side cannot be favored on the road. Secondly, Chicago has never faced Nik Turley before so combined, they have zero AB’s against him while the Twinkies have seen Jose Quintana for years and have a combined 247 AB’s against him. That’s 247 AB’s against Quintana to 0 AB’s against Turley. That along makes the Twinkies worthy of a bet here. Incidentally, the Twinkies have combined to hit .263 off him Quintana with an OPS of .746 and that’s mostly when he was better than he is right now.

Turley was a 50th-round pick of the Yankees in 2008 and had moderate success in the organization prior to signing with the Giants as a minor league free agent in December 2014. Since that time, he was briefly in the White Sox and Red Sox organizations before earning his releases and signing with an independent league team in 2016. The Twins inked him to a minor league contract in October 2016. He has seen a drastic increase in his strikeout rate thanks to his knuckle-curveball that is a legitimate weapon against hitters from both sides of the plate. It freezes lefties and righties rarely make hard contact against it. Turley’s fastball generally sits between 88-93 mph and he occasionally mixes in a slider and changeup. The curveball is definitely his go-to pitch. Not only has his curve evolved into a plus pitch, but he’s starting to throw consistent strikes. Control and command have been significant obstacles in his past but if didn’t walk a batter in his debut.  Turley has made just two starts this year and comes in with a 12.46 ERA. That’s ugly but the sample size is extremely small and one of those starts came against the red-hot Indians. Now the market has put far too much emphasis on his surface ERA while we’ll focus on the positives that include an elite groundball rate in the minors that has carried over to this level and the seven K’s he has produced in nine innings. At the end of the day, the South Side can certainly win here but in no way do they deserve this billing. As value bettors, Minnesota is the prudent choice here.

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