Today's Free Picks for
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Posted at 10:30 AM EST. Odds subject to change.
NL Wild Card Game 2
NY Mets +103 over Milwaukee
7:30 PM EST. The Mets momentum continues and who better to keep things rolling than a pitcher who looked at Chris Sale, said “I wanna do that,” and then pulled off a reasonable enough facsimile to at least stop people from laughing at the idea. Sean Manaea’s (LHP - NYM) midseason transformation led to a career-best WARP (2.8) and a career-high in innings pitched, each slightly outpacing his 2021 season. It’s an old saw to caution against changing horses midstream, but says nothing at all about the horse changing itself. Prior to seeing Sale pitch in person in late July, Manaea had assembled a 4.34 xERA; after—which included adjusting his mechanics, grips, and pitch mix—he pitched to a 3.49 xERA. It’s not rags to riches, exactly, but it’s a meaningful change and one that looked a whole lot better (2.63 ERA from July 30-Sept 21) prior to his final start of the season, where he gave up six runs in 3.1 innings against…uh oh. Milwaukee.
While the pitch plots will show you a bunch of information that accurately reflects his 2024 season, the version of Manaea we get now is a much simpler one: He’s drastically upped his four-seam fastball usage in the second half of the season, relied more on his sweeper, and dropped his cutter and sinker from his repertoire. His change has been a reliable third offering, but he’s seemed to gain confidence in it as the season wore on, and it generated the highest whiff% of any of his pitches in September.
Frankie Montas (RHP - MIL) looked like exactly what Milwaukee needed in the month following his acquisition from division rival Cincinnati, recording an ERA under 4.00 and racking up 33 innings in August. Things both fell apart and didn’t in September, as Montas saw his ERA spike to 5.55 thanks to a bout of gopheritis (seven home runs allowed), but he also struck out 38 batters in only 24.1 innings. His slider and splitter each saw significant jumps in whiff rate during September. The bulk of the damage was done in one ugly start against Arizona, but we can’t just throw it out because it’s inconvenient. Between the small sample size and conflicting results, there’s nothing we can confidently make of this mixed bag—but it is something we’ll be keeping track of in tonight’s game.
Otherwise Montas is about as vanilla as they come on the bump. He’s got five pitches, will mix ‘em all in—the split more often to lefties, the slider more often to righties—and he’ll generally go his 5-6 innings and allow 2-3 runs. That’s generally been good enough for the Brewers offense to stand up, and their defense helped him lower his hits per nine by 1.5 (and his WHIP by nearly 0.2). Montas was only 3-3 in his time in Milwaukee, but the Brewers won eight of the 11 games he started.
This truly is a 50/50 proposition but what about the psychological edge that the Mets have here? OIt can’t be ignored. You see, the Crew have been a playoff mess for a number of years now and after losing Game 1 in a very favorable spot, that inability to win playoff games and blow leads has to be gnawing at them. Meanwhile, the Mets just continue to mash, and for once they did it without the longball. Francisco Lindor deservedly gets the headlines, but don’t let his stardom obscure another strong season at the plate from pending free agent Pete Alonso, Mark Vientos’ power breakout, and Jose Iglesias’ astonishing and pesky resurgence. They have a blend of power and contact hitters that make the lineup obnoxious to navigate (complimentary), as the Brewers found out last night. The Crew have their backs to the wall and do not look anything like a team about to turn their playoff woes around.
Sherwood
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Arizona -150
Detroit +125
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Detroit +134
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Our Pick
N.Y. Mets +103 (Risking 2 units - To Win: 2.06)