Milwaukee @ SAN FRANCISCO
Milwaukee +114 over SAN FRANCISCO

BEST LINES:  Pinnacle +114BET365 +110 SportsInteraction +110 5DIMES +111

Posted at 11:45 AM EST.

10:15 PM EST. Chase Anderson (RHP) has increased his velocity and strikeouts as the 2018 season has progressed. He’ll now face a San Francisco nine that has been a below-average offense vs. RHP and a bottom-five offense in July. The right-hander has allowed fewer HR (9% hr/f) with fewer hard-hit balls in away outings and brings an outstanding 2.05/3.25 ERA/xERA split over his last five starts into this game. We certainly trust Anderson in this spot but more significantly, it’s time to start paying attention to the under the surface decline of one Madison Bumgarner (LHP).

No matter the fielding independent pitching statistic to which you subscribe — ERA, xERA, SIERA, Bumgarner’s 2018 has not inspired confidence. Despite a dazzling 3.18 ERA, his baserunner suppression skills (i.e. strikeouts and walks) have lagged this year, and his 4.82 xERA all portend severe bumps in the road. Granted, Bumgarner has outperformed his xERA before but not like this year and now all the red flags are there to put the fade tag on MadBum, as the potentially serious concerns about his health and success are real.

The problems with Bumgarner’s 2018 season — or at least the peripherals that underpin his 2018 season — stem back not to his broken finger but, rather, something both farther back and much more dire. You may or may not recall Bumgarner fell off a dirt bike last year and injured his throwing shoulder. He returned from that injury almost exactly a year ago and promptly underwhelmed us. Sure, he posted a 3.43 ERA through September and has a 3.23 ERA in the calendar year since his return. It’s not vintage Bumgarner, as his strikeout rate has caved dramatically, falling more than six percentage points while his walk rate is getting worse by the week. Bumgarner used to be one of the best at getting hitters to swing and miss at stuff in and outside the zone but that’s getting worse by the week too. Plate discipline splits show that hitters are making contact on in-zone fastballs more than 95% of the time. That’s really bad. Coupled with significantly fewer chased pitches, it’s apparent the fastball no longer has any deceptive qualities to it. This is his primary pitch we’re talking about, a pitch that has fallen dramatically from grace, from being legitimately plus to legitimately minus during what might be expected to be his peak years. The old baseball adage says that when your fastball goes, so, too, does your effectiveness.

In his last start, Bumgarner walked six batters and struck out five. He’s walked 10 and struck out nine over his last two starts. His swinging strike rate is down to 9%. That aforementioned dirt bike accident sidelined him for three months and he’s not been in ace condition since (not sure about the bike). Madbum’s pitching shoulder was badly hurt. His velocity is also down and he appears to be getting progressively worse with each passing start and he really wasn’t that good to begin with since the accident. Bumgarner is attuned to the fact his fastball has been failing him. Having thrown the pitch 48% of the time in 2016, he threw it only 41% of the time in the latter half of 2017 and has scaled it back even further this year to 38%.

We are absolutely going to trust that the Bumgarner we see from here onward will be pretty different from the one to whom we’re accustomed. He can try to get by with diminished fastball velocity and effectiveness, but it’s very much like the continual nightmare unfolding in real time of Felix Hernandez’s diminished velocity and his monumentally failed attempt at reclaiming his former glory. Once the wheels fell of the cart, it stopped moving. The King, like Bumgarner, had the requisite secondary stuff to get by, but once the fastball broke, it was all over. It’s possible that, at 28, with a few more months of rehabilitation, his shoulder (and, subsequently, his fastball) heals. He could return to form, at least as defined by his underlying skills, and continue to build an airtight case for the Hall of Fame. However, we have seen shoulder injuries completely debilitate once-excellent pitchers and at least for now, Bumgarner’s underlying skills, which include a weak batted ball profile of 37% grounders, 25% line-drives and 38% fly-balls and a 4.82 xERA suggest strongly his results this year are more fluke than fact. Until further notice, sell Bumgarner and watch the profits roll in.

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Our Pick

Milwaukee +114 (Risking 2 units - To Win: 2.28)

Baltimore -1½ +124 over L.A. Angels
San Francisco +100 over San Diego
Toronto +120 over Tampa Bay
Washington +135 over Cincinnati
San Diego under 83½ -105
Boston under 79½ -110