Chicago White Sox at Cleveland Guardians Best Bet – 7/4/2024

Chicago White Sox vs Cleveland Guardians Details

• Date: July 4, 2024
• Venue: Progressive Field
• Starting Pitchers:
  • Jared Shuster - White Sox
  • Ben Lively - Guardians

Betting Odds

Chicago White Sox vs Cleveland Guardians Win Probabilities

Implied Win % in sports betting represent the probability of an outcome as suggested by the betting odds. It's a way for bettors to gauge the likelihood of an event occurring based on the odds offered by sportsbooks.

Projected Win %, also known as projected win probability, is an estimate by ATS.io to determine the likelihood that a team will win a game or event. This projection is often based on various factors such as team performance, statistics, and historical data.

Chicago White Sox vs Cleveland Guardians Betting Preview

On July 4, 2024, the Cleveland Guardians will host the Chicago White Sox at Progressive Field in the third game of their series, an American League Central showdown. The Guardians are having a fantastic season with a 53-31 record, while the White Sox are struggling significantly at 25-63. Cleveland is currently in a strong position for the postseason, whereas Chicago has been struggling to stay competitive.

The Guardians will send right-hander Ben Lively to the mound. Lively, despite being ranked as the 272nd best starter in MLB, has posted a solid 3.03 ERA this season with a 7-4 record. However, his 4.25 xFIP suggests that he might regress as the season progresses. The good news for Cleveland is that Lively's high-flyball tendencies may play well against a White Sox lineup that ranks 27th in home runs and struggles with power.

On the other side, the White Sox will counter with lefty Jared Shuster. Shuster has also been defying his peripheral stats, boasting a 3.15 ERA despite a concerning 5.31 xFIP. He has mainly worked out of the bullpen, making 17 relief appearances to go with his starts. Shuster's low strikeout rate could be problematic against a Guardians offense that ranks 4th in the league in avoiding strikeouts.

Offensively, the Guardians hold a clear advantage. Ranking 10th in home runs and 8th in stolen bases, Cleveland's lineup is both powerful and speedy. In contrast, the White Sox offense ranks 29th in both batting average and overall performance, highlighting their season-long struggles.

Cleveland's bullpen, ranked 2nd by advanced-stat Power Rankings, further solidifies their edge over Chicago's 28th-ranked bullpen. This disparity in bullpen strength could be crucial, especially with Shuster's projection to pitch only 3.8 innings on average.

Betting lines reflect these dynamics: Cleveland is a significant favorite with a moneyline of -245, giving them a 68% implied win probability. THE BAT X, the leading MLB projection system, aligns closely with this, projecting a 64% win probability for the Guardians. Cleveland's projected team total of 5.25 runs underscores their offensive potential, while Chicago's 4.09-run projection suggests a challenging day ahead for their struggling lineup.

Quick Takes Chicago White Sox:

With a 1.96 disparity between Jared Shuster's 3.15 ERA and his 5.11 estimated true talent ERA (via the leading projection system, THE BAT), it's safe to say he's been one of the luckiest pitchers in the majors this year and figures to see negative regression in future games.

• Pitchers that are overperforming should be expected to pitch worse going forward, which can create value if the lines are too heavily weighing the lucky, to-date overperformance.

Despite posting a .235 wOBA this year, the leading projection system (THE BAT X) believes Andrew Benintendi has had bad variance on his side given the .081 discrepancy between that figure and his estimated true talent wOBA of .316.

• Players that are underperforming should be expected to play worse going forward, which can create value on prop Overs if the lines are too heavily weighing the unlucky, to-date underperformance.

Tommy Pham hits many of his flyballs to center field (39.5% — 96th percentile) and has the misfortune of hitting them towards the league's 7th-deepest CF fences in today's matchup.

• This player's skill set does not match up particularly well with the park he's in today, which may lead to worse-than-usual performance.

Quick Takes Cleveland Guardians:

Out of all starters, Ben Lively's fastball velocity of 89.3 mph is in the 4th percentile this year.

• Velocity is a key component to fastball success in generating strikeouts and preventing runs.

Andres Gimenez is projected to hit 6th in the lineup in this game, which would be a downgrade from his 80% rate of hitting in the top-half of the lineup this year.

• The lower in the order a player bats, the fewer plate appearances he will get and the fewer opportunities he will get to hit the Over for every market. A player who hits lower in the order than he normally does may provide extra value opportunity since the market may be based on him hitting higher.

According to the leading projection system (THE BAT), Austin Hedges (the Guardians's expected catcher in today's game) is considered to be an elite pitch framer.

• Pitch framing is a catcher's ability to make a ball look like a strike to the umpire, "stealing" strikes for his pitcher. This leads to more positive outcomes (like strikeouts) and fewer negative ones (like walks or earned runs).

Game Trends

• The Cleveland Guardians have hit the 1st Five Innings (F5) Team Total Over in 27 of their last 40 games (+12.75 Units / 26% ROI)
• The Chicago White Sox have hit the 1st Five Innings (F5) Team Total Over in 22 of their last 38 away games (+6.50 Units / 15% ROI)
• Andrew Vaughn has hit the Home Runs Over in 5 of his last 19 games (+13.40 Units / 71% ROI)

Chicago White Sox vs Cleveland Guardians Prediction

Final Score: Chicago White Sox 3.99 vs Cleveland Guardians 5.09

For more on today's game check out the comprehensive statistics, betting odds, and trends below. Be sure to check out all our free MLB picks here.