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Posted at 11:00 AM EST.  

7:05 PM EST. Merrill Kelly (RHP - ARI) had all kinds of control problems in his last start (7 BB in 3.2 IP at Cubbies). South Korea's KBO league import has shown signs of being productive so we’re not going to put too much weight on one wild start. Take his last start away and he had walked just three batters in 19 innings previously. Kelly has 22 K’s in 23 innings with a 62% first-pitch strike rate. We also like that the Diamondbacks have won the first two games of this series and seven of their past nine overall. The team is playing well, especially on the road.

Jordan Lyles (RHP - PIT) is 2-0 with a 0.53 ERA after three starts covering 18 innings so why is he priced so cheap here? It would appear to us that the oddsmakers are “taking a position” here and enticing folks to lay the cheap price with a starter that has allowed one run in three starts. That always raises red flags for us so of course we had to look deeper into Jordan Lyles.

Lyles is a former well-regarded prospect in the Rockies system who flamed out because he couldn’t miss bats. After signing on with Pittsburgh this offseason as rotation depth, the righty has suddenly taken off? It’s all smoke and mirrors my friends. Lyles has been allowing way too much hard contact this year. He used to be a pretty good contact manager, with barrel % rates in the top 5% of MLB in both 2015 and 2016. Those days are no more; Lyles is allowing hitters to barrel the ball 10.3% of the time, a rate that would easily be a career high. Accordingly, hitters’ exit velocity against Lyles is also at a career high at 89 miles per hour. Lyles’ ground ball rate, while still respectable at 46.2%, is continuing a four-year downward trend. Lyles is allowing harder contact and more contact in the air. That seems like a bad combination. Then there’s the luck factor where Lyles strand rate this year is 100% and his BABIP is .237. We’re not saying that he doesn’t have skills because there are far worse options that Jordan Lyle in this league but he’s not close to being this good and now is the time to jump ship. The line says so.

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