The Toronto Blue Jays and New York Yankees close the book on their season series today with a matinee at Yankee Stadium.
The pregame narrative: Toronto and New York have played several high-scoring games recently and in their overall head-to-head series this year. I like the over (again) on Sunday and am backing Vladimir Guerrero Jr. at a too-good-to-be-true price on his bases prop.
Check out the best Blue Jays picks vs. the Yankees on Aug. 4.
Blue Jays picks vs. Yankees
Go to full Blue Jays/Yankees MLB betting markets.
Best Bet: Guerrero over 1.5 bases (+118)
At some point, the worry has to be that teams will stop pitching to Guerrero. But until then, I'm going to have a tough time not recommending his bases prop at plus-money odds.
The all-star first baseman did everything for Toronto in an 8-3 loss on Saturday: 3-for-4, home run, double and two runs scored.
That effort extended his hitting streak to 16 games, a span that reaches back to the Sunday before the all-star break.
In some hitting streaks, players scrape by on singles and don't actually put up impressive numbers. That isn't the case here. Look at Vladdy's production over his past 16 games:
- .525/.586/1.136 slash line
- 18 extra-base hits
- 20 runs
- 18 RBI
- Over 1.5 bases in 13/16 games
Can he keep this up? No, but Baseball Savant's batted ball metrics demonstrate that his elite power/contact combo is no fluke.
Guerrero ranks in the 98th percentile in expected batting average (.315) and in the 96th percentile in expected slugging percentage (.568).
With all of this in mind, it's difficult to understand why Vladdy has plus-money odds to collect multiple bases today.
And although Gerrit Cole (3-2, 5.40 ERA) carries plenty of cachet, he's not performing anywhere near his peak this season. Plus, Guerrero has done just fine against the reigning AL Cy Young winner in the past.
Key stat: Guerrero is 11-for-32 (.344) with two home runs and three doubles against Cole.
Quick picks
Over 9 runs (-115): At this number, the over is 6-0-2 in the past eight matchups between the Jays and Yankees. Nothing about this pitching matchup makes me believe that trend will come to a halt today.
Cole, as mentioned, has been suspect this year. His inflated ERA is backed up by an unsightly .867 opponent OPS.
On the other side, Toronto's Yariel Rodriguez unravelled last time out (0.2 innings, one hit, four walks), and his 4.31 ERA through 10 starts is below league average.
Each of Rodriguez's past four starts have totalled nine or more runs. Five of Cole's seven outings this year have met or cleared this total, too.
The Yankees have the second-highest overs rate in MLB (63-45-4, 58.3%), and the Jays are fourth (61-47-3, 56.5%).
Parlay: Aaron Judge, Juan Soto 1+ runs each (+115): As far as I can recall, this is the first runs parlay I've promoted all season. But in a game that will hopefully feature plenty of offence, there's no better duo to back than this.
Judge's bases prop is set at 2.5 today, which should give you some indication of how he's playing right now. The runaway AL MVP favourite has scored a run in 35 of his past 53 games (66.0%), posting a .500 on-base percentage in that span.
Soto, the MLB walks leader, has also scored in 35 of his past 53 games and has a .459 OBP in that span. He bats immediately before Judge, in the No. 2 spot, and together they wreak havoc.
Judge and Soto have both scored in 10 of the Yankees' past 16 games.
Picks made at 9:20 a.m. on 08/04/24.
