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The MLB Postseason rolls on Wednesday with two teams aiming to lock up a place in the NLCS while the Yankees look to get back to business in Kansas City after dropping Game 2 at home on Monday.
We'll back two totals on Wednesday night as we expect some fireworks in elimination games in the National League, and also explain why the New York Yankees should be in a good spot to move just a game away from the ALCS in Game 3 of their series against the Kansas City Royals.
Let's get right into things and hand out our MLB Best Bets for Wednesday, October 9.
It seems pretty hard to believe that the Phillies would go quietly into the night here, particularly against a veteran pitcher in Jose Quintana who's left a lot to be desired this year.
Now, Quintana will have to find a way through a Phillis team ranked inside the top five in xBA and Expected Slugging against left-handers this year, and on which sat atop baseball in xBA to lefties in the final two months of the season.
While Quintana and a struggling Mets bullpen should help out the cause here, New York has been one of the hottest teams in baseball at the plate over the last few weeks and Ranger Suarez has ben trending in the wrong direction.
The lefty finished up with a 6.04 ERA in the month of September, yielding five hits and three walks to the Mets in his penultimate outing with two home runs to boot.
This one should be a slugfest.
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The big handicap here is on the Royals' inability to make contact, which should come to light against Clarke Schmidt.
Kansas City has struck out in over 24% of its plate appearances thus far in the postseason, and to end the regular season was just a hair under 24% in September which rated as one of the worst marks in baseball.
This is an offense that, simply put, is ice cold at the moment even with a few isolated outbursts in this series. The Royals do hit better at home, sure, but it's largely due to the fact that they can find extra bases by putting the ball into the spacious outfield at Kauffman Stadium.
Against a pitcher who shouldn't yield much contact, I don't expect the advantage to be there, and on the other side of the coin the Yankees should enjoy the matchup with Seth Lugo as one of the league's five best teams against ground-ballers and one which has crushed fastballs this season.
Catch all the latest updates and tips before placing your bets in our betting news section.
Finally, we've got a bullpen game on the cards for the Dodgers as they attempt to stave off elimination.
We saw in Game 1 that Dylan Cease simply doesn't match up well with the Dodgers. He's had a whale of a time against this team all season, and as a man who hunts strikeouts at the expense of walks it makes perfect sense.
This team may be banged up with Miguel Rojas expected to miss this game and Freddie Freeman playing on a bum ankle, but we can't ignore the fact that Cease yielded eight baserunners over just 3 1/3 innings when he faced the Dodgers on Saturday.
Both offenses look to be playing the part of disruptors, and with a pitching matchup that screams runs to me, we should see both lineups rise to the occasion in a make-or-break game in the NLDS. I expect more struggles from Cease, but it's just as likely that a Padres team that's clobbered the ball at home gets to a bullpen that's looked human over the course of the second half.
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