A hot start by the Twins and a surprising start for the White Sox aside, the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers are back in the top two spots in the AL Central where they’re likely to stay as the season progresses. The Indians won the first series between these two teams, but Detroit will try to even up the season series with a win on national television on Monday night.
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ODDS ANALYSIS
The Tigers are hanging around the .500 mark despite injuries to Miguel Cabrera, Jose Iglesias, J.D. Martinez and JaCoby Jones.
Despite those injuries, the offense hasn’t been the Tigers’ biggest issue. They’ve gotten great production from Ian Kinsler, Justin Upton and—surprisingly—Alex Avila. Where they’re not getting production is in the bullpen.
The Tigers’ pen is a perennial problem now for the better part of a decade. This year is no different.
Detroit has the worst bullpen ERA at this point, pitching to a combined 6.78 ERA, encouraging Brad Ausmus to lean too heavily on his starters and overuse the bullpen arms that are pitching well; though it’s hard to find one other than Justin Wilson who isn’t anything more than a lefty specialist.
PROBABLE PITCHERS
Daniel Norris gets the ball for the Tigers on Monday’s series opener. Norris has been very good against the Indians in his young career. He’s made four starts against Cleveland, going 2-0 with a 1.69 ERA and keeping the Tribe in the ballpark. He had a start against them earlier this month and held the Indians scoreless in six innings.
Since that scoreless start, Norris has had some issues. He’s failed to go five innings in either of his last two starts, giving up four runs in each of those games.
The 24-year old southpaw is still a youngster in terms of major league experience, but he’s now made 31 major league starts, giving us a reasonable sampling. He’s been rather serviceable in his major league time, going 8-6 with a 3.78 ERA in his big league time.
For the Indians, Trevor Bauer is slated to make the start. The 26-year old righty has failed to live up to expectations. He was a first round draft pick back in the day, but has been a mediocre starter in his career.
He’s 32-34 with a 4.49 ERA in parts of six Major League seasons. This year has been even worse. He does have two wins, but he’s also allowed 16 runs in 23 innings of work, including giving up five home runs.
He was extremely hittable in his first two starts, but opposite from Norris, he’s actually starting to pitch better—somewhat. He’s pitched at least six innings in each of his last two games. In his last start, however, he did give up four runs to the Astros including two homers so the long ball is still an issue.
LIVE BETTING
Back-to-back losses earlier this week notwithstanding, the Indians are starting to turn things around, winning six of their last eight games.
The pitching and hitting are starting to mesh. The return of Jason Kipnis—even with his bat still cold—moves Jose Ramirez back to the hot corner and gives the team a more consistent lineup. Ramirez and Francisco Lindor are both improving over very good years last year.
After a slow start, Edwin Encarnacion is beginning to turnaround after an adjustment period. The catching situation is still a black hole offensively, but otherwise, the rest of the lineup is looking much better.
One other area to note, however, is the struggles of Brandon Guyer. Guyer was a big part of Cleveland’s success against southpaws last year after he was acquired at the trade deadline. The Indians have a .682 OPS against southpaws which could come into play against Norris unless things begin to turn.
QUICK PICK
The Tigers won the first series of the year between these two teams and now they get to play in Detroit.
Norris and Bauer went head-to-head in one game with Norris getting the win in a one-run game, closed out by K-Rod.
Don’t trust the Tigers’ bullpen, but the lefty starter against a lineup struggling against southpaws and the game being in Detroit should help give this one to the Tigers.
Detroit gets the lead early and does enough to maintain in this game, keeping the Indians’ vastly superior bullpen out of the equation.
MLB Odds: Tigers 7, Indians 5
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