If you’ve been following my work at all here at ATS.io, then you know that this would be a game on my radar. I’d be looking to fade Adam Wainwright on the road. He’s on the road here and also faces a very dynamic San Francisco Giants offense. It will be Johnny Cueto for the Giants and he is in a short favorite role here against Wainwright.
Wainwright has a 3.49 ERA with a 3.94 FIP, but that simply does not tell the whole story. Far from it, actually. Wainwright has been very fortunate with when his turn in the rotation has fallen. He has pitched 67 innings at home with a 2.55 ERA and a .259 wOBA against. He has only been tasked with pitching 33.2 innings on the road and has a 5.35 ERA with a .340 wOBA against.
Wainwright is a guy with extreme home/road splits over the last several years. I’ve run through these numbers before, but I can do it again for today’s write-up. If we look at his home numbers dating back to 2013, he has only posted a wOBA north of .300 twice, with a .303 in 2019 and a .314 in only 28 innings in 2018.
On the road, dating back to 2016, Wainwright’s wOBA numbers against have been .374, .389, .352, .360, .266, .340. The .266 was last season with an all Central Division schedule and over 24 innings. This is a guy that has made a lot of hay in his career with pitching at home, but his road numbers are far worse. He had a 3.00 ERA on the road last season. His next lowest ERA on the road is 4.32.
The Giants are a top-five offense overall this season and have been stunningly good at home as well. They are +40 in run differential with 189 runs in 38 games. Scoring nearly five runs per game at home would have been mostly unheard of for Giants teams of the past, at least not since Barry Bonds was around, but they’ve done so many special things as an organization to really improve in a lot of areas.
The Cardinals offense simply isn’t very good and hasn’t been for a while now. They’ve been one of the league’s bottom-feeders on the offensive side since the middle of May. They have all sorts of issues and the manager isn’t even leveraging relievers properly in situations where the Cardinals actually have a good chance to win. They gave away some games in Colorado this past weekend.
I know that the betting markets aren’t super keen on Johnny Cueto. Cueto has a 4.00 ERA with a 4.06 FIP in his 72 innings of work over 13 starts. He’s a guy that doesn’t create his own problems. The K% may be a little on the low side, but he doesn’t walk people and that allows him to keep his team in the game, but also to refrain from having to deal with a lot of men on base.
I think Cueto is fine, but I like the projection for the Giants against road Wainwright in this game and that really is the biggest selling point for me. I think it’s a pretty simple, cut-and-dry handicap, and one that will hopefully work out in our favor.
Pick: San Francisco Giants
Other games: Colorado Rockies at Arizona Diamondbacks; Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers