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Rubber Match: Phillies a -140 Favorite Behind Taijuan Walker on Getaway Day in Chicago
By Joe Tansey
Published:
EDIT –
KINKEAD: Houser was pulled and replaced, Tyler Alexander is going to go instead.
Getaway Day games can be fickle to handicap.
The Phillies finish up a six-game road swing in Chicago against the White Sox on Wednesday as only a -140 money line favorite.
Taijuan Walker being on the mound has something to do with that, as do the home numbers for White Sox starter Adrian Houser, who owns a 1.38 ERA inside Rate Field.
The Phillies should still win the game because they’re the better team, but a three-game weekend home set with the Tigers awaits them, as does as a day off on Thursday. So you can understand if the Getaway Day trap swoops them up.
Entering Wednesday, the Phils are 4-3 in Getaway Day games (or games at the end of multi-city road trips). The more stark trend in those contests is that six of those seven games featured seven runs or fewer. Five of those games had five runs or fewer.
The Over/Under sits at 9, and while I get it, Walker is on the mound and you’re hesitant to bet the under, but that’s what the trend is telling us to look at. BetMGM has an Any Sport Odds Boost Token available for Wednesday. You can use that to take some juice off the under at -115.
Just because the under is in play doesn’t mean we can’t take advantage of the weaknesses of both Walker and Houser. The pair of right-handed pitchers combined to give up 43 hits across six starts in July. Walker only allowed three earned runs in his last two starts, while Houser limited his damage to seven earned runs in four appearances.
Lefties have had far more success against Houser with a .288 batting average. Righties are only hitting .208 against him. Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper both have decent head-to-head numbers in more than 10 at-bats. Bryson Stott has two hits and a home run in three at-bats versus Houser.
The damage against Walker has been more balanced. Righties have seven home runs and a .261 AVG, while lefties hit five home runs and have a .240 AVG.
I’d start any Same Game Parlay with Schwarber to get a hit, which as a straight bet is -200 at bet365. It’s still a lot of juice, but that’s a decent price for a hitter of his caliber.
Nick Castellanos is tied with Schwarber for the most hits in day games on the Phillies roster, and despite the bad splits for righties against Houser, he has a .286 career average in 28 ABs against the right-hander.
Lenyn Sosa, who homered last night, and Miguel Vargas, are the White Sox’s two best hitters against righties. Each of them have over 60 hits and Vargas leads the team in day-game hits with 43.
A SGP of hits for Schwarber, Casty, Sosa and Vargas sits at +320 at bet365. That’s for New Jersey sports betting apps and PA apps too. If you just want to do Schwarbs and Casty, the SGP number sits at -110.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.