Posted at 10:30 AM EST. Odds subject to change.

Pinnacle  +100 BET365 -105 Sportsinteraction -103 888Sport -105

NY Mets +100 over Chicago

7:40 PM EST. Carlos Carrasco (RHP - NYM) has a 8.68 ERA after four starts, which is why the Mets look a bit unappealing here. Carrasco has walked 10 batters in 18 innings this year with just 11 K’s so the ERA is earned. However, his strand rate of 56% is on the extreme side of bad luck. His line drive rate of 16% (which is very low), suggests batters are not making hard contact against him. Carlos Carrasco had a very decent year last season with 11 wins and a 3.55 ERA over 152 frames. It was his highest IP total since 2018 with only one IL stint (oblique) sidelining him for two weeks. His season-long recoveries of both K% (supported by swing and miss rate) and BB% gave that rebound year some legs. Health concerns linger at this age, but he can repeat on a per-inning basis and looked very good in his last start (6% line-drive rate/56% groundball rate/11.5% swing and miss rate) despite the poor pitching line, We’re going to trust Carrasco more than we’re going to trust Chicago’s starter.

Kyle Hendricks (RHP - CHC) comes off the injured list due to a right shoulder strain to make his first start of the year and the reason he’s making his first start is because the Cubbies are paying him $13.875 million this year, the final year of his contract. If they weren’t paying him that much, he wouldn’t be anywhere near a pitching mound in the major leagues so we’re going to fade him when we can.

A shoulder strain ended things for Hendricks last year in early July so this is his first start in 10 months. He made five starts at Triple AAA Iowa this year and pitched to a 5.75 ERA over 20.1 innings in which he surrendered 13 earned runs and an oppBA of .273. He wasn’t fooling minor league hitters but there is no way they are going to pay this stiff 14 million to count heads on the bus. He’s going to pitch. In any event, the problems that started in earnest in 2021 (notably, with lefties, walks) continued last year and a new issue reared its head, which was a fly-ball spike that meant a bunch of jacks. The pre-2021 version of Kyle Hendricks is not returning but his 85 MPH fastball is.

Sherwood

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