The Toronto Blue Jays kick off a three-game series against the San Diego Padres on Friday night.

The pregame narrative: Toronto concluded its first homestand with a 6-3 mark and turns to Yariel Rodriguez for the second time this season. Opposite Matt Waldron, I'm expecting a good dose of offence.

Check out the best Blue Jays picks vs. the Padres for April 19.

Blue Jays picks vs. Padres

Best Bet: Over 8.5 (-106)

Rodriguez had a great MLB debut but was limited to 3.2 innings. He had a light spring workload and only made one Triple-A start before his promotion.

A deep outing would be unexpected, which means we're likely looking at fairly heavy usage from the bullpen, which has been abysmal. Take a look:

• 22nd in opponent batting average (.245)
• 27th in ERA (5.53)
• 29th in FIP (5.60)
• 30th in home run/nine rate (1.93)

The Padres have MLB's fourth-lowest strikeout rate, are sixth in average and seventh in wRC+.

It has helped them average the eighth-most runs per game (5.19). They should be able to do damage. And Toronto should be able to contribute here, too.

Waldron is a light-tossing righty who didn't throw well in his first taste of the bigs last season and was battered at Triple-A in consecutive years before that.

He's never been a big swing-and-miss arm and, while his K rate is up and his ERA looks solid (3.14), his expected ERA (4.39) is in line with last year (4.48), per Baseball Savant.

Waldron got hit hard in one start and issued several walks in his last outing, leading to a 1.47 WHIP.

Toronto's offence is walking at the third-highest rate in baseball and has been better than league average by OBP (.325) and wRC+ (106).

Key stat: The over on this total cleared in each of Toronto's last two games and in three of the Padres' last four.

Quick pick

Ha-Seong Kim over 0.5 hits (-148): You won't see many recommendations at these odds but it's hard to find this price for a lone hit out of semi-competent hitters.

And Kim is that, despite his .227 average. He hit .260 last season and .251 the year before that. Those numbers don't jump off the page but were better than league average.

Kim has a hit in six of his last seven games, driving his average up from .196 during that span.

For the season, he has cleared this line in 13 of 21 games and is hitting significantly better at home than on the road (.275 vs. .171).

Kim has been San Diego's No. 5 hitter in each of the last two games and slotted no lower than sixth in the order this season.

Picks made at 3:35 p.m. on 04/19/24.