FINNs DRAFTKINGS SAME-GAME PARLAY I - Tony Finn's DKs 4-Pick SGP: Orioles ML / NRFI Under 0.5 Run / Game Total Under 9.5 Runs / Grayson Rodriguez Strikeouts Thrown 6+ | +500
For every 1% / 1 unit invested in this SGP the return is +500
2% parlay rating
Starting Pitchers: Schmidt and Rodriguez
Home Plate Umpire: Ben May is a veteran of MLB Wars. May is scheduled to work the dish tonight in Game 1 of a four-game series in Baltimore. May grades out as pitcher-friendly. The veteran umpire doesn't offer any significant boost save his 10 percent increase in strikeouts above the pitcher's season or career strikeout percentage.
Venue: Oriole Park at Camden Yards
Weather: Clear skies beyond first-pitch hover over Oriole Park in Baltimore. The temps for tonight's Game 1 of a four-game series opens at or around 80 degrees with no precipitation expected. A breeze between 5-10 mph blows from the right to the leftfield foul pole.
The Yanks right-hander Schmidt earned only five quality outings in his 32 starts a season ago. The Yankees' righthander pitched six innings on only five occasions in his 32 turns. Those five starts came against the Oakland Athletics (who won fewer games than any team in the league), Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies, Tampa Bay Rays, and the Detroit Tigers. Only the Rays had a winning record. Three of the teams that Schmidt pitched through six innings against ranked 26th, 27th, and 30th in team batting average, in the 2023 campaign.
Schmidt is inconsistent and heavily dependent on offensive support. Opposing lineups with seven or more batters owning a positive run value versus a Cutter, Curveball and Sinker found Schmidt earning two wins and six losses a season ago; in the situations when facing lineups with positive run values on all three pieces of a pitcher' arsenal.
Schmidt's 4.68 ERA was aligned with his 4.27 xFIP a season ago but the number of games he struck out more than a batter per inning was trumped by a K/9 of less than 9.00 on game night.
Baltimore has seven position players with plus run-value on the three primary offerings that Schmidt depends on when toeing the rubber. Schmidt's primary offerings are the Cutter, Curveball, and Sinker.
In his starts versus the Orioles a season ago Schmidt allowed five hits in five innings in two of the starts but needed 29 pitches to get through the first inning of one of the pair and more than 29 pitches in an inning in the other five innings start vs Baltimore.
It wasn't until July a season ago that Schmidt won consecutive starts.
Schmidt faced the Orioles four times last season, in 2023, and while he was 2-1 in the four turns he pitched only 18.1 innings in the four starts striking out 16 against six walks. In three of the four starts, Schmidt walked six and struck out nine across 13.1 innings of work. In the 13.1 frames, he surrendered 15 hits and eight runs. The first week of April, roughly a year ago, Schmidt lasted just 3.1 innings allowing four runs on five hits while striking out three against three walks in a no-decision versus Baltimore.
In the other two starts of the three I have outlined above he needs nearly 100 pitches in each start to get through five innings.
Carlos Rodon’s injury opens the door for both Domingo German and Clarke Schmidt to make the Yankees Opening Day rotation a season ago. Schmidt's inconsistencies in moving from a spot starter and long reliever to a starter came on the heels of being dependable in the bullpen. The righthander's 2022 campaign saw him work to a 3.12 ERA and 8.74 K/9 across 57.2 IP (29 appearances, 3 starts).
Nothing Schmidt does is glaringly awesome and he doesn't throw hard enough to garner oohs and awhs from the fans in the stands. Negative regression from his 2022 campaign that included a .273 BABIP and 8.6% HR/FB%, numbers that were projected to climb in 2023 after his 2022 peripherals suggested a significant amount of negative regression appeared and was heard from.
Schmidt has never escaped his uninspiring 3.59 BB/9 in 2022 and is showing nothing to make me believe he can escape the command issues in 2024.
Schmidt was 9-9 on the season with a 4.64 ERA. Schmidt averaged 17 pitches per inning pushing him into the 100-plus pitch arena if and when asked to toss six full innings.
Baltimore's Top Gun Grayson Rodriguez has a total of 17 official plate appearances against Yankee bats. New York has one hit in those 17 at-bats with 4 strikeouts against two walks. Anthony Rizzo, Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton, and GleyberTorres all have three official at-bats versus Grayson with Rizzo having one single. The Orioles rookie pitched 6 1/3 scoreless innings, going toe to toe with New York's Gerrit Cole, who went seven.
The game was delayed 2 hours, and 32 minutes by rain. The game was filled with pageantry. Anthony Santander homered off Tommy Kahnle in the ninth inning to give the Orioles a 1-0 victory over New York on what felt like a postseason event, a Friday Night Lights feature. The Baltimore win spoiled Aaron Judge's return from IL for the Yankees. Judge walked three times in his first game back from a toe injury, but the Orioles kept New York off the scoreboard with a bit of Camden Yard magic, or call it talent on display and the Orioles made play after highlight-worthy play. It was nothing short of an over-the-top pitching performance by the Baltimore rookie and a dead solid perfect defensive effort by the rookie Rodriguez.
Dynamically there is no comparing the two starting pitchers tonight. In a bubble the Yankees would have to get one of the handful of extreme performances from Schmidt and the Yankees would need to hit above the average player weight on the roster; e.g. 205 pounds, or .250.
The AL East Standings heading into the weekend action is as follows;
1. Yankees: 19-10
2. Orioles: 17-10 (1 GB)
3. Red Sox: 16-13 (3 GB)
4. Blue Jays: 14-15 (5 GB)
5. Rays: 13-16 (6 GB)
The Yankees are winning with pitching. If you toss out the pair of 15-run outbursts against the Milwaukee Brewers this past weekend, New York ranked middle of the pack in runs scored per game, and several key hitters (Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo, Gleyber Torres, etc.) weren't just underperforming, but have been awful and were aesthetically ugly to watch swinging a bat.
The New York pitching staff, even without Cole, has carried the Yankees to their 19-10 record. Consider:
SP ERA: 3.34 ERA (4th in MLB)
RP ERA: 2.70 ERA (4th in MLB)
Oppositions OPS: .660 (8th in MLB)
When the Yankees score more than two runs this season they are 19-3. When the Yankees score two runs or less they are 0-7.
The seven starters, who have had assistance in containing the New York offense, those seven starters that are responsible for seven of the Yankees' ten losses as follows;
Z. Gallen - Arizona Diamondbacks
Yimi Garcia - Toronto Blue Jays
Ryan Weathers - Miami Marlins (LHP)
Chris Bassitt - Toronto Blue Jays
Zach Eflin - Tampa Bay Rays
J. Sears - Oakland Athletics (LHP)
Alex Wood - Oakland Athletics (LHP)
Bullpen usage vs Milwaukee (Friday thru Sunday)
D. Santana 0.2 12-7 (Friday)
C. Holmes 1.0 10-8 (Friday)
M. Tonkin 2.2 46-30 (Friday and Saturday)
R. Marinaccio 2.2 41-24 (Friday and Sunday)
C. Ferguson 1.2 24-16 (Friday and Sunday)
I. Hamilton 0.2 18-12 (Saturday)
L. Weaver 2.0 26-15 (Saturday)
J. Trevino 1.0 18-11 (Saturday)
V. Gonzalez 1.0 29-14 (Sunday)
Tonight's game is all about Grayson Rodriguez.
Yes. The ice is thin in my claim - but what makes tonight's game at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore a slam dunk – is how Grayson Rodriguez goes vs the offensively-challenged pinstripes.
Rodriguez had a dominant season debut against the Angels on Saturday, striking out 9 in 6 IP, while allowing just 1 ER on 4 hits and 1 BB. He recorded a 17.9% SwStr% for the ballgame.
His season debut was a carryover from last summer. It was a three-month period in which Rodriguez was elite. GRod was masterful in the second half of last season, compiling a 2.58 ERA along with a 73:21 K:BB and 52.7% GB% across 76.2 innings of work.
The former top prospect has the upside of being one of the best pitchers in MLB. Despite his current 4.45 ERA he is on my short list for the Cy Young, in only his second full season at the age of 24.
The towering rookie dominated the Pirates in his second start striking out seven in 6.1 innings. GRod walked a pair in the win but the walks were more about home plate umpire Brock Ballou and his smallish Kzone than it was about Grayson scuffling with his command.
Rodriguez tossed 5.2 innings of six-hit and two-run baseball in his third start. He walked a pair of Boston bats but over his six hits allowed and two earned runs striking out five was again, right on time and the performance was neat and tidy. , 6 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, and 5 K on Thursday.
What was most impressive about the third start of the season against the Sox was that GRod didn't have his best stuff. In fact, stating he didn't have his best stuff isn't strong enough. All things equal, Rodriguez has nearly nothing to utilize in the matchup against the Red Sox.
Grayson's fastball velocity (95.7) was almost two ticks below his season average (97.4). His second and third pitch, a cutter and changeup, were also absent velocity that was typical, minus at least a mile per hour. As a result, the young righthander had to navigate the Red Sox lineup and do so without his typical 32 percent swinging strike rate.
Note: it is not uber-unusual for a pitcher to lose some velocity in a particular start. It happens for a number of reasons, and all are not worth discussing unless one of the reasons is that it is the pitcher you are backing and he has nothing to offer his teammates, you or me.
The less-than-Velo on G-Rod's three best pitches were all short a tick or two of zoom. However, even absent a tick or two of Velo the stuff Rodriguez has is still top-tier. Rodriguez understood he was performing with something less than he wanted, or less than he had to offer on other days, but executed and earned a victory despite being without his No#1 arsenal, weapons.
When the Yanks score two runs or less they have yet to win a game this season ... losing seven straight ... make that eight straight as Baltimore's Grayson Rodriguez is in top form from the first inning on issuing the Yanks zero opportunity to leave Camden tonight with the dub.
Tony Finn's DKs 4-Pick SGP Outline:
1st Leg: Orioles ML
2nd Leg: NRFI Under 0.5 Run
3rd Leg: Game Total Under 9.5 Runs
4th Leg: Grayson Rodriguez Strikeouts Thrown 6+
For every 1% / 1 unit invested in the above SGP the return is +500 (DraftKings)