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Phillies Looking To Go 8-2 in Last 10 Zack Wheeler Starts in Series Opener vs. Padres
By Joe Tansey
Published:
The Phillies are 7-2 in Zack Wheeler’s last nine starts. The Phils are 4-1 at home in Wheeler’s five home appearances during that span. The two exceptions were last week’s 2-0 loss in Houston and a rare bad outing from Wheeler against the Braves on May 29. So there’s good reason why the Phillies are a -225 money line favorite at BetMGM for the series opener against the Padres.
Most Phillies bets seem to be in play on Monday because the Padres haven’t been good on the road recently. They went 2-5 in a road swing to Arizona and Los Angeles and just lost two of three to Cincinnati over the weekend. The Padres are four games below .500 on the road, while the Phils are 12 games above .500 at Citizens Bank Park. I get it if -220 is too high of a price for you, so I’d look into the run line price at -110 instead. Five of the seven wins during this recent span were by multiple runs. Four of San Diego’s last seven road defeats were, you guessed it, by multiple runs .
Wheeler holds a significant edge in Monday’s pitching matchup against Matt Waldron, who is making his first major-league start of 2025. Waldron doesn’t have great overall numbers, but he’s a bit tricky to face because he has a knuckle ball in his arsenal. A year ago, Waldron gave up 21 home runs (11 to lefties, 10 to righties) and batters on each side of the plate had an average over .250 against the 28-year-old right-hander. No Phillies players have had more than six ABs versus Waldron, so there isn’t much to go off with head-to-head history.
But there are some trends to look at. The first is very dumb, but I mean screw it, it might mean something. Nick Castellanos and Max Kepler are both hitting over .400 on Mondays. Castellanos is 12-for-29 and Kepler is 9-for-21 on Mondays. Castellanos is coming off a three-hit series in Atlanta and he had six hits in the last home series against the Mets. He also ranks in the top 20 in the majors in home batting average. Castellanos is +475 to hit a home run at bet365, as well as +105 to record over 1.5 total bases. bet365 has a 30 percent boost on any Same Game Parlay for Monday’s MLB slate. I’d put Castellanos 2+ total bases, Phillies run line and Wheeler to have 6+ strikeouts in that SGP that sits at +400 before the boost goes into effect.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.