Both teams find themselves on top of their respective divisions and have been playing solid baseball. The Dodgers have the best record in MLB with a 40-24 record consisting of a 22-11 home mark and an 18-13 road mark.
10* graded play OVER the posted total of 5.5 runs in the Dodgers-White Sox interleague game taking place at 10:10 PM ET, Friday. The Chicago White Sox are 34-29 and lead Cleveland by 1.5 games
in the American League Central. They have done very well in road tilts sporting an 88-11 mark and have outscored opponents by 37 runs in 63 games played this season. They are the only team in the division, who has outscored their opposition.
Betting flowsIt is always difficult for any linesmaker to post a 5.5 total line in MLB baseball and not surprising, the majority of shops opened at 6 -115.
The UNDER was bet very aggressively early, but by small bettors, and pushed the line to -130 and -135 before being adjusted across the board to 5.5 -110.
The reason the public is all over the UNDER is that they are focusing on only the starting pitchers in this matchup. The CWS Chris Sale has posted an 8-2 mark with a 2.05 ERA in 12 starts this season. Kershaw has matched and possibly exceed those numbers, despite a 5-3 record, with a 2.65 ERA and a 0.996 WHIP, striking out 81 batters spanning 88 innings of work.
Kershaw has struggled though in this last three starts posting a 5.03 ERA with a 1.322 WHIP, but has struck out 24 batters spanning 19 innings of work. Sale appears to be getting even better over his last three starts, posting a 1.11 ERA and a 0.658 WHIP fanning 30 batters, walking just four batters in 24 innings of work.
WorkloadsSales has
logged a ton of work pitching seven or more innings in each of his last four starts for a total of 32 innings and has thrown 432 pitches. Moreover, he has thrown over 100 hundred pitches in five of his last six starts for a grand total of 638 pitches. he is just 23 years old and this type of workload does lead to below average starts, especially when occurring in the second half of the season. Young starters are just not accustomed to the physical grind of a 162 game season.
Simulator projections and game situationsThe simulator shows a high probability that six or more runs will be scored in this game. There is a modest probability that one of these teams will score six runs on their own merit.
The Dodgers are not an offense dependent on power hitting. The CWS are 21-9 OVER when facing low power teams averaging 0.9 or less home runs per game this season; 16-7 OVER when on a good fielding streak posting 10 straight games with one or less errors this season. The CWS are an excellent fielding team ranking third best in MLB having committed just 29 errors in 65 games played this season.
The Dodgers are a solid 21-6 OVER with a hot bullpen whose ERA is under 2.00 the last 10 games in games encompassing game splayed over the last three seasons. As the manager of the Dodgers, Mattingly, is a solid 19-8 OVER after allowing two runs or less in two straight games.
Take the OVER for a 10* graded play as part of your Friday MLB picks.