Chalk Stack(s)

Minnesota Twins vs. Sal Romano

The Twins and Reds played a WILD game last night in which we saw 24 runs scored between the two teams. Vegas believes it’s going to be another high scoring affair as the Twins sit with the highest implied runs total of the early slate. That isn’t shocking with Sal Romano on the mound for Cincinnati.

Romano has been a mixed bag this season and has done well against right-handed bats but struggled mightily against lefties. Lefties have tagged Romano for a .511 SLG and a .371 wOBA on the year. He’s also allowing a 32.5-percent hard hit rate and a 20-percent line drive rate to lefties on the year. And even though he’s been good against righties, I wonder how sustainable it is due to the fact that he was just as bad against them as left-handed hitters last year.

Right off the bat we look to Max Kepler, Eddie Rosario, Logan Morrison and Eduardo Escobar who all hit from the left side. Kepler is coming off a three-hit game on Friday night which is his second one in three games. He’s hitting .304 with a .397 weighted on-base average against RHP this season. Rosario has not had the ideal start to his 2018 campaign, but he had two extra-base hits on Friday night including a homerun. Morrison, like Rosario, has been baaaaad this year, but he to went deep last night. He hit 38 bombs last year and only has two this season thus far, but both have come in the last 10 games. Last night especially should be a kick starter for what’s to come. The consistency Escobar is showing at the dish is great to see. He has a mini four-game hitting streak going with hits in seven of his last eight. He has a .916 OPS on the year but just in the last 10 games, he’s been even better than that posting a .964 OPS.

Guys like Brian Dozier and Miguel Sano can be used here as well, especially when stacking this team. I don’t buy into Romano’s success against right-handed bats one bit and I think that it ends today at the hands of Dozier and Sano.

Primary Play(s): Max Kepler, Eduardo Escobar, Logan Morrison, Eddie Rosario

Secondary Play(s): Brian Dozier, Miguel Sano, Jason Castro

 

Contrarian Stack(s)

Milwaukee Brewers vs. Jose Quintana

The jury is still out on the ownership here, but since the Brew Crew are on the road here, they’re big Vegas underdogs, making them the lesser owned team of the two in all likelihood. That said, I’m not exactly sure why. Quintana has been bad this year, especially to right-handed hitters. He’s allowed a .313/.397/.547 slash to righties and they’ve even posted a .403 wOBA. Lefties have been a little worse, but they have a .360 wOBA to date. What’s killed him is the hard hit rate he’s notched. The 33.3-percent mark to lefties is bad, but against righties it’s 47.2. THAT IS HORRIBLE!

Ths stack leads off with two guys who play the same position, but luckily for us Ryan Braun can also play the outfield. Over the last 10 games, Braun has been on fire hitting .406 with a 1.147 OPS. Braun is a career .330 hitter versus LHP and matches up well with Quintana. Jesus Aguilar is the other Brewers first baseman I mentioned above in play here. Aguilar is slashing .429/.556/.643 against southpaws on the year and it isn’t just any old fluke as he hit .301 against them last season too.

Lorenzo Cain, Jonathan Villar, Christian Yelich are all also in play here. Villar definitely hits better from the left side, but he’s 4-for-9 off of Quintana and has two steals in his last 10 games, so he could grab up the extra points from stolen bases as well. Cain and Quintana have met up a bunch of times since both come from American League central teams.Cain has gone 19-for-66 (.288) off of the Cubs lefty, so he’s shown that he can hit him too. Yelich has actually been far better against lefties on the year than right-handers. He’s hitting .350 vs. LHP compared to .243 vs. RHP. He’s posted a 50-percent hard hit rate off of lefties this year so the correlation is there.

Primary Play(s): Ryan Braun, Jesus Aguilar, Lorenzo Cain, Christian Yelich, Jonathan Villar

Secondary Play(s): Domingo Santana, Jett Bandy