It's that time of year again, my friends. In the post season, margins are very thin. As always, I'll be looking for angles to exploit. If I can find enough on one side, I'll make it a play. I'll post all my Wildcard plays in this thread.
Let's see what we can do!
The first game that drew my attention is San Diego @ Chicago. Below are a few reasons why I'm backing the Padres here:
- What really jumped out to me was the recent performance of Matt Boyd. In his last 7 games (37 innings), he's given up 25 ER on 39 hits and pitched to a 6.08 ERA and 1.38 WHIP. Relatively small sample size, sure. However stretch that out over the last 2 months of the season and he hasn't been much better, pitching to a 5.16 ERA and 1.34 WHIP. Those are not ace numbers.
- Nick Pivetta has been much more consistent. He's held his ERA under 2.99 and WHIP right around 1.00 in his last 7, 15, and 30 games. He is a little bit better at home than on the road. However, he's 7-2 with a 2.34 ERA and 0.86 WHIP during the day. With that and holding opponents to a 181 avg offsets any road concerns for me. Pivetta is right around league avg at keeping the ball on the ground with a 45.2% groundball rate. Typically, the concern with him is that when he does get hit hard, the ball tends to fly out of the yard. With the wind blowing in today, any mistakes will hopefully result in deep fly outs.
Statistically, the Cubs do bring the better offense. However, they did a lot of their damage in the first half of the season. They're still a top 10 offense over the past 30 days, but the Pads are right there at #13. Of course, SD doesn't have the power that Chicago brings. They're a scrappy offense that will grind out at bats and do the little things to score. Given the wind, I don't think a lot of balls are gonna get over the fence today. That favors SD in my opinion. I am concerned about Roman Laureano being out. Gavin Sheets will start in his place and that puts 3 lefties (O'hearn, Sheets, and Cronenworth) near the bottom of the order. However, O'hearn has great #'s vs South Paws (349 AVG and a 1.059 OPS). Cronenworth and Sheets both hit 250 against lefties, so while not ideal - I don't see the bottom of the lineup being a game changer.
- Lastly, the Padres have the best bullpen in baseball. The Cubs are middle of the pack. I expect this to be the difference in the series. Huge advantage to SD in a close game.
I'm on the Padres at +111
Again, will post in here if I play another game.
BOL out there. Cheers 
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