Sunday Night Baseball: Phillies vs. Guardians
After splitting the first two games, the rubber match in the Phillies vs. Guardians series will take center stage on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. The teams enter play with identical 23-16 records after Cleveland’s win on Friday and Philadelphia’s win on Saturday. Both games have been decided by six runs, as the Guardians won 6-0 on Friday and lost 7-1 on Saturday, so we’ll see if this one brings us any more drama in front of the national audience.
How to Watch Phillies vs. Guardians
Where: ESPN
Top MLB Resources:
When: Sunday May 11, 7:10 p.m. ET
Phillies vs. Guardians MLB Odds
Philadelphia Phillies -175 // Cleveland Guardians +145
Total: 7 (-122/-102)
Phillies vs. Guardians Game Preview
The Guardians face long odds in the series finale because they’ve drawn one of the league’s top pitchers as Sunday night’s assignment. Zack Wheeler enters with a 3.35 ERA, 2.36 xERA, and a 3.22 FIP over his eight starts covering 51 innings. He’s had a little bit of misfortune on the home run front so far, boasting a 16.7% HR/FB%, which would be the second-highest of his career. His highest came back in 2017 at 19.5% after he missed the 2015 and 2016 seasons.
Wheeler owns a career 3.34 ERA and a 3.31 FIP and has been shockingly consistent over the course of his career. The 35-year-old right-hander has struck out a third of the batters he has faced and has also cut his walk rate down to a career-best 4.5%. It will be quite a task for the Cleveland lineup this evening.
Consistent is not a word that would be used to describe Luis L. Ortiz, who gets the ball for the home team in this one. He enters with a 5.30 ERA, 5.09 xERA, and a 4.24 FIP over seven starts across 37.1 innings of work. Ortiz has given up 23 runs over those seven starts and three of those outings account for 17 of the runs, so he’s been all over the map. He’s also had three starts of 8+ strikeouts, but has only struck out nine of 48 batters in his last two efforts.
The inconsistent command profile for Ortiz has also yielded a 46.2% Hard Hit% and a 12.3% Barrel%. Wheeler’s highest Hard Hit% in the Statcast era is 36.2% and his highest Barrel% is 8.3%, so these two pitchers are extremely different.
If Ortiz can find a way to go toe-to-toe with Wheeler, the Guardians bullpen is in good shape after yesterday’s loss, as Joey Cantillo wore one for the bullpen late in the game and also let the game get out of hand. The Phillies also have their top arms available since Ranger Suarez gave them seven stellar innings yesterday.
Straight betting options are a bit difficult to find here, as the Phillies are deserving of the heavy favorite role, but the scrappy Guardians could give Wheeler some fits with how they foul pitches off and get a lot of hits off of bloops and bleeders. Despite some good pitching weather, getting Over 7 runs seems doable, especially with Ortiz’s bust probability.
Pick: Phillies/Guardians Over 7 (-122)
Phillies vs. Guardians Player Props
Luis Ortiz (CLE) Under 15.5 Outs Recorded
With a full complement of bullpen arms, coupled with an off day this past Thursday and one on the horizon this upcoming Thursday, I would expect Stephen Vogt to be aggressive in leveraging his relievers here. I don’t think he’ll want Ortiz heavily exposed to the Phillies a third time through the order and Ortiz has either gotten a strikeout or a walk in 35.7% of plate appearances, so pitch efficiency is not really a thing.
