This is what meaningful late-September baseball is all about. In the opener of a monumental three-game series on Tuesday night, the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays played a back-and-forth affair that was broken open in the seventh inning on one of the craziest home runs you’ll see by Giancarlo Stanton. The Yankees’ slugger took a Trevor Richards pitch that was nearly on the ground and hit it well over the left-field fence to give New York a commanding lead.
It was the Yankees’ seventh straight win and gave them a two-game lead for the first American League Wild-Card spot over the Boston Red Sox, who lost to the Baltimore Orioles. The Blue Jays kept pace with Boston but fell to three games behind the Yankees. And, with the Seattle Mariners beating the Oakland Athletics, the Mariners leapfrogged the Blue Jays and are a half-game behind Boston for the second Wild-Card spot (and 2½ games behind New York).
The series continues on Wednesday night with a great pitching matchup between the Yankees’ ace Gerrit Cole and the Blue Jays’ José Berríos. First pitch from Rogers Centre is at 7:07 p.m. ET. The BetUS Sportsbook has the Yankees as -111 moneyline favorites and as +140 favorites on the runline. The Blue Jays are +101 moneyline underdogs and -160 underdogs on the runline. Current MLB lines have the over/under at 8 runs.
This is Why Yankees Signed Cole
When teams sign a pitcher to a $324 million contract, this is the type of game they envision them starting and winning. The Yankees need their well-paid No. 1 starter to recover from a pair of mediocre starts and shake off some of his September struggles to lock down baseball’s top offense. Cole is coming off a six-inning three-run win over the Red Sox in which he pitched fine but walked three hitters and wasn’t particularly sharp. In the start prior, he was shelled by the Cleveland Indians, giving up 10 hits and seven runs in less than six innings.
Cole can’t be perfect every time he’s out there but he has to be better than that if he’s going to beat the Blue Jays and their ridiculously loaded lineup, which is at the top of nearly every batting category. He also struggled against Toronto in an injury-shortened start earlier this month at Yankee Stadium.
But, all things considered, if you’re betting online, you should back Cole. For the most part, he has been great this year — a 3.08 ERA, AL-best 5.78 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and 1.044 WHIP are all really impressive — and has stepped up in countless big moments for a team that hasn’t had many guys provide consistent starting pitching. Cole is a guy to trust.
Berríos Has Homer Issues
Berríos has essentially been the same pitcher with the Blue Jays as he was with the Minnesota Twins before the trade deadline, which is great for Toronto. If they can continue to get a 3.50 ERA from him with over a strikeout per inning and a career-low walk rate, they’ll take it. The big concern with Berríos — who has been solid if unspectacular in September — is home runs.
He has given up one home run in each of his last five starts and in seven of his last eight. Now, you can look at the relatively few runs he has allowed in those starts and view that positively, in that he is mostly shutting teams down except for one mistake pitch in every outing. That’s certainly a fair and accurate assessment but, for Wednesday’s game against the Yankees, it’s a little concerning.
New York has hit the seventh-most home runs in baseball and with a middle-of-the-lineup that rivals that of the Blue Jays in terms of pure power, Berríos’ dinger propensity is dangerous. He’s also catching the Yankees at a time when Stanton and Judge seem to be hitting home runs every night. Stanton has been on another level lately, homering in his last four games (and five of six).
Giancarlo Stantons last four games: 8-for-16 AB (.500), four homers, 13 RBIs.
Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) September 29, 2021
While the MLB odds have the Yankees as favorites, this matchup is favorable enough for them that Vegas is giving a little too much credit to the Blue Jays. Like all games, this one could go either way but with Berríos’ home run issues and the Yankees basically only being able to score on home runs, it spells trouble for him and Toronto.
Toronto Bats Are Slumping
It’s unreasonable to think that the Blue Jays were going to keep scoring eight runs a night after their initial surge back into playoff contention earlier this month, but the last few weeks have definitely been an issue in terms of sustaining that run production. Since beating the Tampa Bay Rays on Sept. 13 — Toronto’s 12th win in its last 13 games — the Blue Jays are 6-7 and are averaging just 3.46 runs per game, a far cry from when they scored 44 runs in two days against the Orioles.
Things haven’t been nearly as easy for them since they left Baltimore and it has resulted in .500 play even as the pitching staff has held up its end of the bargain. Elite offenses are allowed to slump from time to time but Toronto has picked the worst part of the season for its downturn.
So, if you’re making MLB picks, go with the Yankees’ moneyline, even though there isn’t much value there. It’s never easy to face Gerrit Cole, especially when you’ve had trouble hitting against lesser pitchers in the last few weeks.
