With another full slate of MLB games on deck for Saturday, MLB handicapper Dalton Brown is back with a total he's hitting early on a matinee game.
3:07 p.m. ET: Anaheim Angels at Toronto Blue Jays: OVER 9 (-110) at DraftKings
This is a total I'm hitting more than 24 hours in advance, because it doesn't make sense to me and I have every reason to believe it'll rise between now and game time.
Alek Manoah makes his fourth start back from his minor-league stint for Toronto, hoping to improve on a 5.02 ERA in July. Manoah has looked somewhat better than the disaster he was earlier this season, but he's been far from effective - especially over his last two starts. Over those two outings, the righty has walked nine batters and allowed seven earned runs in just 8.1 innings of work. I am not at all a believer that he's been fixed, and the Angels are no easy task. Since June 15, Anaheim ranks third in MLB with a ridiculous 127 wRC+ vs. right-handed pitching - and after recent indications from the front office have made clear the organization's intentions to improve the roster, I'm expecting a renewed sense of focus for an already hot offense.
Reid Detmers, a young lefty, will start for the Angels. Detmers has shown flashes of why the former first-round pick rose so quickly through Anaheim's minor-league system, but he's struggled of late. Detmers sports a 6.64 ERA in July, and for the season has a 5.71 ERA away from Angel Stadium. When the Blue Jays saw him back in April in Anaheim, they crushed him for five runs over five innings - and given Toronto's sixth-ranked offense against lefties since June 15 (wRC+ of 121), I wouldn't be surprised to see the Jays hit Detmers hard again. When Detmers exits, the Blue Jays will be licking their chops ahead of an opportunity to take swings against Anaheim's 26th-ranked bullpen in xFIP since July 1.
Both of these offenses are comfortable in this platoon split, neither pitcher is performing well of late, and these two offenses combined to average 5.83 runs per game over their respective midweek series. This number is too low, and I think it closes closer to 10 than 9.