BEST LINE: Pinnacle +115

Posted at 11:55 AM EST.

The Reds are healthy again and just took two of three from the Dodgers while outscoring them in the last two games, 9-1. That was against Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu and now the Reds take a step down in class when facing Matt Garza. Frankly, we have no interest in Garza whatsoever as the chalk and neither should you. Garza’s poor surface stats (4.42 ERA – 1.35 WHIP) are well supported by his poor under the surface stats. In his last start, Garza walked five and struck out one. His groundball rate has been in decline for three years running and is now at 38% after 13 starts. Garza has allowed three runs or more in seven of his past eight starts and he’s been able to pick up some wins because of the outstanding run support he’s received. That could definitely change here.

One of the unchecked boxes on Homer Bailey’s profile heading into 2014 was consistency. Big talent; yes. Pedigree and arsenal; no doubt. Flashes of brilliance; certainly. But could he ever put it together for a whole season? He did so in 2013 but he has struggled mightily so far in 2014. Before you jump ship, take note of the outstanding skills that Bailey possesses that has been masked by extreme bad luck. No starter has a worse combination of hit % and hr/f misfortune than Bailey: 42% hit%, 29% hr/f. Fact is, Bailey has a strong BB/K split of 25/70 in 78 innings. He also has an outstanding 53%/18%/29% groundball/line-drive/fly-ball profile. If that’s not enough, he has an above average swing and miss rate of 12% to go along with an xERA of 3.48, which is more than a full run lower than his actual ERA. Buy low targets don’t get much better than this and we’re all over it.