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Phillies a -155 Favorite to Win Series in Pittsburgh
By Joe Tansey
Published:
Congrats on surviving the longest few days in the sports calendar!
It’s been a long arduous 48 hours without any baseball in our lives, but we survived and now it’s time to dive head first back into the first-place, best-in-the-majors Philadelphia Phillies.
The second-half schedule isn’t exactly friendly to the Phils, at least at the start, since they play road series in Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Arizona. There are only six games at Citizens Bank Park between now and August 11 and those are against Cleveland and the New York Yankees.
We can worry about the upcoming gauntlet when the Phillies make it to Minnesota.
For now, it’s about dominating the in-state battle (I don’t want to call it rivalry because it hasn’t been one) with the Pirates, who are actually good and in a playoff fight.
The Phils are sending Aaron Nola, Cristopher Sanchez and Tyler Phillips to the mound in that order this weekend. Pittsburgh is starting Martin Perez, Luis Ortiz and Marco Gonzales.
There’s no Paul Skenes on the series schedule and I could argue, even with Phillips, the Phillies have an advantage on the mound in all three games.
Perez is a veteran lefty who will probably get lightly pushed out of Pittsburgh in the offseason so the young guns can take over. He allowed 12 earned runs in his last two starts and a few Phillies have absurd numbers against him. Alec Bohm is 8-for-16, Nick Castellanos has a .375 batting average in 16 at-bats and Trea Turner has a .333 BA against Perez.
Gonzales, who starts Sunday, is another lefty the Phils could feast on. He is a pitch-to-contact guy. He’s never had overpowering strikeout stuff in Pittsburgh and Seattle. He gave up seven hits last Friday to the Chicago White Sox in his first start in three months.
Ortiz is the most fascinating of the three Pittsburgh starters. He only allowed eight hits in his last 11.2 innings, both starts, after spending some time in the bullpen.
Nola is clearly better than Perez, Sanchez can take advantage of Pittsburgh’s sixth-most strikeouts against lefties, and Phillips could shut down that lineup. The book isn’t completely out on Phillips yet and Sunday games can be weird anyway.
I’d say the surest bet of the bunch is the Phillies money line on Friday. The numbers against Perez are too good to ignore and the team total is only set at over/under 3.5 runs at Pennsylvania sportsbook apps, which feels like a hammer spot if everyone is focused after the All-Star break.
This is a series the Phillies should win, and frankly, they need it to create some second-half momentum ahead of a brutal next few weeks.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.