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Cristopher Sanchez’s Incredible Home Form Lends Itself to Under Bet in Wednesday’s Dodgers/Phillies Game
By Joe Tansey
Published:
Cristopher Sanchez is the best home pitcher in Major League Baseball.
The Philadelphia Phillies left-hander owns a 1.35 ERA inside Citizens Bank Park this season. The next best home ERA in the entire majors is 1.64 from Erick Fedde of the Chicago White Sox.
Sanchez tossed three consecutive gems inside The Bank against the San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Miami Marlins to generate a little bit of National League Cy Young Award buzz.
The newly-extended southpaw is likely out of any Cy Young longshot predictions after his seven-run concession on the road at the Chicago Cubs last week, but that doesn’t mean a home drop off is incoming.
In fact, Sanchez has gone at least six innings in every home start following a road start in 2024. He’s allowed five earned runs across the five starts that fit that criteria.
The Phillies are 7-2 in Sanchez’s nine home starts. They’ve won seven home games in a row in which Sanchez started. The two losses came back in April against the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Phils have an average margin of victory of 3.4 runs in Sanchez’s starts. Now, that number is a bit skewed by the 10-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays and the 9-2 win over the San Diego Padres.
Four of the last six Sanchez home starts have hit the full game under, including the 2-0 win over Miami and the 4-1 win over Arizona in his last two appearances in south Philadelphia.
All of those numbers suggest a low-scoring affair is in the cards for Wednesday’s clash with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
However, the over/under sits at 9.5. Sanchez’s poor last start might be baked into that number, as is the warm conditions that help in a hitter-friendly ballpark.
Sanchez’s home form would be the driving factor to bet the under. That thought is aided by the road numbers of Dodgers starter Gavin Stone.
Stone owns the fourth-best road ERA in the majors at 2.30. He’s only allowed two home runs away from Dodger Stadium and is tied for second with Tyler Anderson of the Los Angeles Angels for the fewest road earned runs in the majors. Boston’s Tanner Houck is first in that category with 10 road earned runs.
Only once this season have the Dodgers allowed more than three earned runs in an away start by Stone. That was in his first road appearance of the season on April 7 against the Chicago Cubs.
Stone’s last three starts all came at home-run sensitive ball parks against the Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies and New York Yankees, so he’s proven that he can keep the ball from going long distances in conditions that love the long ball.
Sure, you could argue trends are meant to be broken, but it’s hard to argue half of a season’s worth of consistency not just for Sanchez at home, but for Stone on the road. That makes the under 9.5 a very strong play for Wednesday night.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.