00:00all right welcome back to newswire here on sports grid let's take a check in on today's daily slate
00:04in major league baseball nobody better than to check in than with rob donaldson who's going to
00:08join us now he's got his eye on some of the games which includes an afternoon game at wrigley field
00:12rob great to have you here back on newswire really appreciated and certainly the friendly
00:17confines always fun when it's like that solo game going on that appears to be the case today cubs
00:23take on the pirates hey pirates playing good ball here carmen blodzinski not their top starter today
00:28and of course naturally you never know what you're going to get the five the one i think blodzinski
00:32more or less the five on their team shota imanaga and i'm gonna guess the wind is blowing in at
00:38wrigley that's always the question because i'm seeing a total here of six and a half now this
00:42could change in a second you know that cubs minus 145 today yeah no absolutely when you're talking
00:50about a day game at wrigley it's always going to be a weather kind of related event because
00:55either is blowing out or is blowing in and the total is going to reflect that immediately you're
00:59just going to know without even having to check accu weather right but at the same time you look
01:04at the pittsburgh pirates right now and their role i think they're a really good team but you kind of
01:08mentioned it carmen blodzinski is not one of their top end guys and when you do look at just the
01:13under
01:14the hood numbers for those first um two starts you see a lot of hard hit balls that he's not
01:20really
01:20paying for and kind of vice versa on the chicago you know lineup side of things you're seeing a lot
01:25of guys hitting a lot of hard balls who aren't necessarily getting rewarded for it in the early
01:30goings and so i think there's a positive regression angle when you're talking about the cubs lineup
01:34i think there's a negative regression angle when you're talking about carmen blodzinski and for that
01:39reason i'm targeting that first five and i'm going to be willing to lay the half run with the cubbies
01:43here yeah cubs uh you know should get this win today you would think but i think right now the
01:49question is can the pirates continue to play how they're playing and still some skepticism i guess
01:53on that all right let's go to philadelphia where the diamondbacks will take on the phillies tonight
01:57the phillies are huge favorites because jesus lazardo was pitching he's minus 180 total of eight
02:02and a half uh diamondbacks are just trying to press through here a little bit kind of find themselves i
02:07think in this early part of the season should lazardo be this big of a favorite tonight rob over arizona
02:14you know i think if you're looking at on just the kind of the backs of jesus lazardo
02:18i don't necessarily think he's kind of the one justifying this price point that said when you do
02:23look at michael soroka kind of like what we were just talking about with carmen blodzinski
02:26the under the hood numbers in terms of hard hit percentage right now are not in line with what
02:32could be uh you know a good track here for for uh our boy here in michael soroka and for
02:37that reason
02:38i i really like the phillies offense to really kind of spark themselves in this game very early on i
02:44know
02:44we just laid that half run through the first five innings but i'm going to be willing to do it
02:48again
02:48here because i think michael soroka when you look at a you know a 0.9 era that's just not
02:53truly
02:54representative of what's going on sure he can go out there and toss some k's but i think today he's
02:59going to land a lot of balls in seats in the outfield here and i think the phillies are going
03:03to be the
03:03main beneficiary all right fair enough uh now i i did see the reds for four games in person they
03:09look
03:09like a really good team to me uh rob but they're just having a hard time scoring runs consistently
03:15so i look at this total of nine and wonder where this is honestly coming from chase burns has been
03:19fantastic uh look this is a game that the angels basically have to throw their five out and it's uh
03:25coach now it's who's pitching today for the angels so i don't have a ton of confidence there but i
03:29also
03:30i'm not sure that the reds are going to score a lot yet i haven't seen that yeah and this
03:35is kind of
03:36where i you know it wouldn't be the most conviction that i have on the board for sure but i
03:41look at
03:41gohanowitz and i just also look at the the pitching matchup with chase burns to me chase burns is
03:47electric but electric for real right he's not just a guy who is going to hit the zone work efficiently
03:52or get tagged up if he's not right that given day i think he has he has the ability to
03:57pitch to
03:57contact i also think he has the ability to go out there and toss 11 k's and so through the
04:02first five
04:02frames that that's kind of where my head goes i'm looking at you know team total unders for the the
04:07angels i'm also looking at ways to kind of back the reds when he's starting through those first five
04:11frames and three in a row but i'm gonna be like yeah absolutely through those first five frames i'm
04:18gonna be willing to lay that that half run i think with chase burns and the reds here
04:23yeah burns has been absolutely fantastic i didn't see him pitch though this week uh twins a bit a little
04:28bit of a surprise winning some games here simeon woods richardson goes up against patrick
04:32corbin who's filling in on the blue jays until they get some of their starters back what a disaster to
04:37start the season for toronto rob we know they'll get it going eventually but how about today against
04:41minnesota yeah and i think when you look at the blue jays lineup right now it's just kind of an
04:47unfortunate shape right where they do have some big names still in the lineup george springer vladdy are
04:52still in there but ultimately this is kind of a banged up lineup that's producing like a really
04:58banged up lineup and although you know patrick corbin's the starter in this game for the blue jays
05:03a lot of people when they see that name corbin taking the bump or p corbin on the bump they're
05:08wanting to take the other side or take the over i actually think that when you look at the past
05:13two
05:13years patrick corbin's been tossing more quality games than not like yes he is still gonna give up
05:19those blow up outings where he only goes three innings gives up seven earned runs but the majority
05:24of his outings are him going five or six you know deep and only giving up three or four earned
05:30runs
05:30yeah again not a top end guy that you want to rely on come playoff time for example but in
05:36these kind
05:36of one game vacuums when you're seeing a total of nine i think he actually gives us some validity to
05:42the under here especially when you're pairing it with the blue jays and twins lineup so i'm looking at
05:46the under nine and i'm really liking that bet
05:49all right so let's take a look at all of rob's plays today here and then we'll cap it off
05:55with
05:55one more game before we go because i want to make sure we get those in he's got twins blue
05:58jays under
05:59as you just mentioned under nine uh nationals brewers over four and a half first five reds
06:06phillies and cubs first five as well is that correct that is correct that's the entire slate and we got
06:13all
06:14games in action today are all teams rather and it's just a really fun day to be a baseball fan
06:18starts
06:19with the cubs here soon all right uh last one rob real quick 30 seconds here i know not a
06:24strong
06:24one for you on uh emai pitching for the astros today against emerson hancock who you know certainly
06:29is happy with his bank account seven and a half is the total seattle minus 136 yeah these are two
06:36teams that are riding some serious losing streaks and are kind of in the doldrums it's a it's a team
06:41that's got a win here on both sides of the coin i think emerson hamcock gets the you know the
06:46seattle
06:47the mariners the kind of the right side of that that winning wager and so i would take the money
06:52line with the mariners just don't have a lot of conviction there fair enough great stuff rob as
06:57always we got your card in for the day enjoy your weekend we'll see you next week sounds good enjoy
07:02the
07:02rest of the day here
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