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After Pitiful Mets Sweep, Phillies Return Home a -190 Favorite to Begin Braves Series
By Joe Tansey
Published:
Well, the last few days certainly didn’t go the way the Phillies wanted it to.
The hope is that all the bad vibes were left in Queens and the Phils will go back to business-as-usual for the four-game series against the Braves.
They are at least expected to win from an odds perspective, a -190 moneyline favorite with Aaron Nola going up against Cal Quantrill.
The Phils got 11 runs off Quantrill in two matchups earlier this season while he was still pitching for the Marlins. He was let go by Miami and the Braves picked him up because the Braves just need warm bodies to start games with all of their injuries.
Five Phillies batters have hit a home run off Quantrill in their careers. Kyle Schwarber has three long balls and Trea Turner has two homers to go along with his .455 batting average against the Atlanta righty.
So, yeah, at least from a hitting standpoint, the Phillies are in good shape.
HOWEVER, the Braves have seen Nola so many times in his career and there are certain times where the Phils have to ride the roller coaster of emotions with the right-handed hurler.
The major concern with Nola is the home run concessions against the Braves. Five Braves hitters have had multiple home runs in their career against Nola and Nola’s allowed multiple home runs in three of his last five appearances, including two against the Nationals over six innings in his last start.
The one area where Nola could thrive is strikeouts. The Braves are 11th in strikeouts in the majors and seventh in punchouts against right-handed pitchers. There’s a whole lot of swing-and-miss potential in that lineup.
Getting Nola at -130 to have Over 5.5 strikeouts at bet365 is a solid price. We might see something like 5 or 6 IP with a handful of hits, a home run or two and a bunch of strikeouts for Nola and we’ll still have a debate about his usefulness in the postseason rotation.
For NJ sportsbooks promos, and PA as well, bet365 has a 30 percent MLB SGP profit boost available for Thursday. I think we can attack that with the head-to-head numbers on both sides.
I’d start building that SGP with Turner 2+ total bases. Righties are hitting .335 with 13 home runs against Quantrill this season. I’d put in Nick Castellanos to record a hit into the SGP as well. Castellanos had three multi-hit games last homestand.
I’d add in Ronald Acuna Jr. and Ozzie Albies to get a hit into the SGP. Acuna has a .327 BA with four home runs in 49 ABs versus Nola, while Albies owns a .292 BA in 65 ABs against him. Nola won’t be perfect, so why not take advantage of that?
Turner 2+ bases, Castellanos, Acuna, and Albies to get a hit pays out at +450 before the boost is applied.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.