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Posted at 10:20 AM EST.

7:10 PM EST. Luis Castillo is a rookie pitcher who looked like an impact hurler in July (3.62 ERA, 1.04 WHIP) and those marks weren't flukes, as they came with strong skills support: 8.9 K’s/9, 2.4 BB’s/9, 55% grounders and a near elite 3.42 xERA. Luis Castillo has been high on our radar for weeks and still remains one of MLB’s most undervalued starters. That said, this wager is more about fading Lance Lynn and the Cardinals.

Lots of moving parts here in regards to the Cardinals. First, there is tension in the dugout between manager Mike Matheny and his iconic catcher, Yadier Molina, after Matheny made a comment about Yadier’s lack of hustle (he actually said, “He looked tired running the bases and needed a rest”). Molina fired back via Instagram with this:

"I train to play 174 games because that's what it takes to be a Champion. I'm not tired and the day I feel tired I'll express it myself. #misinforming."

Well, Molina was benched on Thursday of this past week and was also benched in yesterday’s opener, a 3-2 Cincinnati win that should have been about 6-2 or worse. Matheny made a bad choice by picking on Molina of all people, which is likely going to cost him his job at the end of the year. He feels it too, as the dugout is on Molina’s side and not Matheny’s. A divided dugout is not a winning one. Matheny is now “over-managing” to try and save his job. He’s made more moves over the past two or three games than Bobby Fischer did in the 70’s. The Cardinals are a wounded team worth attacking and Lance Lynn is this year’s Marco Estrada.

The reason Estrada survived two years of poor skills is because of a BABIP of .214. BABIP is a pure luck-driven stat that will help determine if a pitcher has a good or bad year on paper. Every year there are extremes at both ends of the spectrum and this year’s top beneficiary is Lance Lynn with a BABIP of .225. To give you an idea of how lucky that is, consider some of today’s other starter’s BABIP, like Jon Gray’s .369, Danny Salazar’s .327 or Drew Pomeranz’s .335. Lynn’s BABIP is more than 100 points lower than any of those guys but eventually it all evens out and Lynn’s luck is going to run out too. That doesn’t mean it will happen today but the point is that Lynn is the luckiest pitcher in baseball with an ERA/xERA split of 3.20/4.61. Over his last three starts, Lynn’s xERA is 7.20. Over his last 31 frames, Lynn has struck out a mere 17 batters. His first-pitch strike rate is 53% overall and down to 48% over his last three starts. His swing and miss rate is 7% and now his line-drive rate is also increasing, as it’s gone from 18% to 28% over his last seven starts. All the signs of fatigue are there while the poor skills have been there all season long. Lynn’s extremely misleading ERA is the direct result of balls being hit right at people. Therefore, things are absolutely, 100% going to take a big turn for the worse on him and this is exactly the type of park that should occur in. 

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