After last night's game with starters James Shields and Cliff Lee was rained out, Philadelphia has opted to scratch Lee from today's start and insert Kyle Kendrick instead while the Rays stick with Shields. Where do we place this in our MLB picks?
Since opening, MLB betting has lifted the favored Rays to -143. The total has dropped slightly to 8.5.
Kyle Kendrick
struggles continue
Philly fans are ready to run Kendrick out of town. He gets
booed every time he takes the field - and for good reason. On the
year, Kendrick has an ERA of 5.29 and has been especially bad in his last
three starts. He's taken the loss in all three of those starts and now he possesses an ERA of 9.00 with a 1.81 WHIP. The guy just cannot get hitters out; he can get them behind
in the count but can never finish them off, which is a classic example of having no out-pitch. In those last 3 starts, he gave up 16 earned runs while serving up 3
long balls. The guy is a disaster; the only reason the Phils have him in the
rotation is because of injuries. As soon as they get a serviceable starter back,
Kendrick will be the first one sent down the the minors or possibly even
released as the organization may have just about given up on him.
Rays' recent struggles
Tampa Bay has lost two in a row and 6 of their last nine, but
somehow are still only three games out of first place behind the Yankees. Tampa is
struggling big time at the plate, having scored more than three runs only once in their last 5 games. Injuries
to their best offensive players is starting to take its toll on the team's
run production. Evan Longoria, Matt Joyce, Luke Scott, and Sam Fuld are on the
disabled list. Those are Tampas biggest run producers, and if they were in the
lineup, they would be in the 2-6 spots.
Will the Phillies
ever turn it around?
We are almost into July, and the Phillies are still in last
place in the NL East with a record of 33-38. They have dropped 6 of their last
10. With Chase Utley and Ryan Howard still a long ways away from returning to the lineup, it's beginning to
look bad for the Phils. All the analysts seem to like to predict that
Philadelphia is just one hot winning streak away from turning around their
season, but we wholeheartedly disagree. This team is going nowhere. Cliff Lee is
still winless on the year, Roy Halladay is also on the DL, and even when he was
pitching, he wasn’t his dominant self. The lineup is absolutely dreadful. Hunter
Pence being the centerpiece is just not a good thing; he chases way too many bad pitches out of the zone and simply can not carry this team on his
back. He needs good hitters around him to be able to produce.
These two teams are slumping at the moment, and
we really see no definitive edge here at
all. James Shields has been up and down all the year for the Rays and, even
though Kyle Kendrick has been rocked, we just don’t trust the Tampa offense to
get to him. If you must play this game, we give a slight edge to the Rays but
recommend focusing on our MLB Plays of the Day. Good luck everybody! Our
overall record is now 41-37 on the year.