The Los Angeles Dodgers will play the Baltimore Orioles in Game 1 of their series on Monday night at Camden Yards in Baltimore, Maryland.
Dodgers Preview
The Los Angeles Dodgers are 53-39 this season and they have won six of their last seven games. Los Angeles is coming off of a series win against the Mets, where they won two out of three games. The LA pitching staff has a 4.37 ERA, a 1.25 WHIP, and a .243 opponent batting average this season. The Dodgers offense has scored 506 runs with a .243 batting average and a .330 on base percentage. Mookie Betts is batting .286 with 27 home runs and 65 RBI’s for the Dodgers. The projected starting pitcher for Los Angeles is Emmet Sheehan, who is 2-0 with a 4.35 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP over 20.2 innings pitched this year.
Orioles Preview
The Baltimore Orioles are 57-35 this season and they have won eight games in a row. Baltimore is coming off of a series win against Miami, where they won all three games. The Baltimore pitching staff has a 4.14 ERA, a 1.30 WHIP, and a .251 opponent batting average. The Orioles offense has scored 458 runs with a .254 batting average and a .324 on base percentage this year. Anthony Santander is batting .275 with 17 home runs and 54 RBI’s for the Orioles. The projected starting pitcher for Baltimore is Grayson Rodriguez, who is 2-2 with a 7.35 ERA and a 1.74 WHIP over 45.1 innings pitched this season.
Trends
Baltimore is 8-0 in their last 8 games and 1-4 in their last 5 Monday games. The over is 5-1 in Rodriguez’ last 6 starts. Los Angeles is 6-1 in their last 7 games. The over is 8-2-2 in Los Angeles’ last 12 road games against a team with a home winning percentage greater than .600.
Pick
These two teams come into this series as two of the hottest teams in baseball, but the Orioles will have the home field advantage, where they have been very good this year. Baltimore is starting Grayson Rodriguez, who has allowed 8, 2, 8, 2, and 6 earned runs over his last five starts. LA is starting Emmet Sheehan, who has allowed 10 earned runs over 20.2 innings of work. I think we are going to see a higher scoring game here and I am taking the over.
AUTHOR: David Racey
