Arizona’s late-season slide has officially eliminated the Diamondbacks from playoff contention, but they can have a big impact on the National League playoff picture with two games left against the division-leading Dodgers, including tonight in Phoenix. LA opened as a -200 favorite but has already moved to -225 as rookie starter Walker Buehler makes his 22nd start.
- The Diamondbacks are 1-8 SU in their last nine games at home vs teams with winning records.
- The Dodgers are 7-1 SU in their last eight games vs divisional opponents.
- The total has gone UNDER in the Dodgers’ last four games with Walker Buehler as the starting pitcher.
Dodgers vs Diamondbacks Game Center
Pitching Mismatch
Top rookie Walker Buehler (2.74 ERA, 0.98 WHIP) takes the mound for LA as he continues to get better each time out. Since the all-star break, Buehler has kept opposing hitters to a .171 average while striking out 84 in 67.1 innings.
In his only other start vs Arizona this season, Buehler gave up just two hits in 5.1 innings on September 2. Speaking of September, the right-hander from the Vanderbilt baseball factory has a 1.71 ERA and 0.76 WHIP in four starts this month.
September call-up Matt Koch takes the ball for Arizona, making his third straight start in place of the injured Clay Buchholz. The 27-year-old has pitched just 9.2 big-league innings since June 19 and only went four innings and 51 pitches a week ago vs the Cubs. This will be his first career outing against the Diamondbacks.
Wake Me Up When September Ends
It’s been just a disastrous month for the Diamondbacks as they’ve gone just 5-17 and fallen from the division lead to completely out of the playoff picture. They have the worst batting average in the league at .211, the third-worst OPS at .649 and have scored just 3.5 runs per game over that stretch.
The pitching staff has been the worst in the National League in terms of ERA (5.25), runs allowed (118) and opponents’ batting average (.263), and 85.3 percent of balls put in play by opponents during this stretch have been classified as medium or hard hit, making life quite difficult on the defense.
My Pick for This game
My pick in this game is obviously Los Angeles, but there’s not a whole lot of value in betting the moneyline tonight, so let’s see where we CAN make some money on this game – 1.5 or two units on the Dodgers at -125 on the -1.5 runline is attractive to me here. Arizona is 0-6 SU in its last six division games with an average losing margin of 3.5.
Aggressive bettors may also like the alternative first five inning runline of -1.5 that is paying +105 for LA. The Dodgers lead the league in run scoring in the first five innings this month with 77 compared to Arizona’s 36.
