Sunday Night Baseball: Giants vs. Phillies
A busy weekend on the diamond wraps up with ESPN Sunday Night Baseball between the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies. The Giants will send ace Logan Webb to the hill, while the Phillies send out Taijuan Walker for his second start of the 2024 season. With the disparity between starting pitchers, the Giants find themselves road favorites in this spot.
How to Watch Giants vs. Phillies
Where: ESPN
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When: Sunday May 5, 7 p.m. ET
Giants vs. Phillies MLB Odds
San Francisco Giants -115 / Philadelphia Phillies -105
Total: 7.5 (-115/-105)
Giants vs. Phillies Game Preview
The Giants have dropped four of five on this East Coast swing, falling in the first two games at Boston and both games at Philadelphia to this point. This is a wraparound series with a getaway day game on Monday afternoon before San Fran makes a stop in Denver on the way home.
Philadelphia, meanwhile, has lost consecutive games just twice this season and once since the first series of the year against Atlanta. The Phils have the best record in baseball at 23-11 and are coming off of a resounding 14-3 win last night.
It seems unlikely that they’ll score 14 runs in a game started by Webb, who comes in with a 2.98 ERA and a 2.82 FIP. He does have a 4.44 xERA, as his strikeouts have mysteriously disappeared and a lot of hard contact has come along with his 60.4% GB%. Webb is on pace to allow a 45.5% Hard Hit% in back-to-back seasons after never being above 40% in any previous season. But, hard-hit ground balls aren’t as damaging as line drives and fly balls, so he’s been able to navigate those choppy seas.
Walker allowed six runs on eight hits last Sunday in his 2024 debut against the Padres. He gave up a couple homers, struck out four, and walked two. He was not sharp at all whatsoever, as he allowed five Barrels and a Hard Hit% of 47.6%. For reference, Webb has allowed seven Barrels total over his seven starts. Out of 187 starting pitchers with at least five innings pitched, Walker is tied for 109th in Barrels in just one start.
So, we’ll see if his command improves or, more importantly, if the Giants can capitalize. San Francisco ranks 18th in wRC+ for the season and 22nd over the last 14 days, so they’ve really had problems scoring runs. In fact, their 35 runs over the last 14 days ranks 29th in MLB. Only the Pirates have been worse.
That makes the margin for error a bit thin for Webb. San Fran wll be looking for length from their ace after requiring 145 pitches from the bullpen yesterday. The Phillies are just looking for Walker to play follow the leader, as the Philly rotation leads all of baseball in fWAR with the second-best ERA and fourth-best FIP.
Even though Webb is solid and Walker is a bit of a mystery, the Giants aren’t scoring and Philly seems capable of hitting anybody this season, so I lean with the Phillies at -105, though it isn’t the strongest of plays for me.
Lean: Phillies -105
Giants vs. Phillies Player Props
Brandon Marsh Over 1.5 Hits+Runs+RBI (-120)
Marsh is batting .306/.349/.579 against righties on the season with six of his seven home runs. He has a K% north of 30% overall, but it sits at 27.7% against righties, so that’s a little bit better and Webb is not a strikeout guy this season. Marsh hits in a good spot in the middle of the order after you have to get past Bryce Harper and Alec Bohm, so that should help. He’s also pulling the ball at about a 39% clip against righties with a good bit of medium and hard contact, making him a good fit against a ground ball guy with a platoon split issue this season.
