Never before in his illustrious career had Clayton Kershaw lost three starts in a row until now. He'll hope to avoid his first four-game losing streak on Friday night when he pitches for the Los Angeles Dodgers (44-35 SU, -7.35 Units) against the New York Mets (40-38 SU, -0.33 Units).
PITCHING MATCHUP
This one really is a doozy, but the opening could be there for sharp over bettors during live betting.
There's something that just isn't quite right about Kershaw this year. We're not all that worried about his 5-6 record, knowing that he really has just been unlucky for the most part thanks to a lack of run support, but that 3.20 ERA is mortal.
In his last three starts, the southpaw has allowed at least three runs, and he has had one inning in each game in which he has allowed two runs.
There were just tons of games last year where Kershaw didn't allow two runs, let alone individual innings.
The Mets aren't the best hitting team in the world, but with Daniel Murphy now back from the DL, they have a little more potency than they once did.
Noah Syndergaard is coming off of the best outing of his young career, and he could be poised to go on a run here for the Mets as well. He was incredibly efficient in his eight innings against Cincinnati, allowing just one run and throwing a mere 89 pitches.
Syndergaard is on a tight pitch count of no more than around 100, as he has only eclipsed that number three times in his nine starts, though the fact that he will have had an extra day of rest for this one and has thrown fewer than 90 pitches in two straight starts might make that leash just a tad bit longer for Terry Collins.
ADVANCED STATS
The Mets need all the help they can get right now, and getting Murphy back in the lineup, though not a franchise-altering addition, should at least improve things. As a team, New York is batting just .233, 29th in the bigs.
This season, New York has a relatively high strikeout rate of 21.0 percent as a team alongside a suspect walk rate of 7.4 percent. Murphy is at least an improvement on each of those averages, but going against Kershaw and his 11.78 K/9 does lend itself to there being a lot of short innings, the likes of which can give arbitrage live betting seekers a real boost.
TALKING BULLPENS
It was really good to see the Dodgers toss five shutout innings in relief on Tuesday night to lock down a win against the Diamondbacks. The prior night, they allowed a total of 10 runs in just four frames.
Still, that 10-6 loss on Monday was an aberration for a very good bullpen. The culprits that night, Yimi Garcia, Joel Peralta, Pedro Baez and Juan Nicascio all had sub-3.00 ERAs before that one dud of a game, and they have all been incredibly reliable for the most part before that point.
Remember that at the back of the pen, we didn't see Kenley Jansen that night either. Jansen now has just one run allowed in 16.2 innings this year and is 12-of-13 in save chances.
Kershaw typically doesn't need a heck of a lot of help to get through games, but if he does in this one, be confident that the Dodgers are going to slam the door on the lousy New York offense.
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