Pirates: Reds Highlights and Key Takeaways

And Pittsburgh, your Pittsburgh Pirates, as the Reds heading into May, sitting pretty. I mean, sitting atop the National League Central standings. They're facing off in Pittsburgh starting off and should be a pretty nice day at the ballpark, Marco. I'm wondering how you're looking to attack this. I know both of these games, you don't want anything to do with the bullpen. So, so let's talk first five action between the Reds and the Pirates. How are you betting it, Marco? Yeah, and here's the situation with Pittsburgh. They're not playing well right now, okay? They've lost five in a row. I get that. And so, sometimes whenever I look at a team

and they're losing, but I like them in the game, it's another reason for me to look at first five. Because, you know, when teams or things aren't going well, sometimes, you know, they might be getting that pitching performance that you expected, and then all of a sudden you turn it over to the bullpen and oops, you blow a lead and you know, you lose a game. So, that's one of the reasons I'm looking first five innings, but let's break it down. Cincinnati's going to send Brady Singer to the mound. His last three starts, if you just look at it on the surface, he's only allowed a total of six runs in three starts. That's okay. But if you break it down a little bit further, in those 17 innings of work,

his strikeout to walk ratio was just six to four. That's not a good strikeout to walk ratio. It tells me that he wasn't dominant with his pitching with his pitches. He wasn't fooling the you know, the hitters with just six strikeouts over 17 innings. And I don't like you know, the high number of walks there. So, this is a guy that you know, you'd have to say um was getting lucky in those starts. Now, on the other side of the coin, we got Mitch Keller going for the Pirates. And he's been one of the more consistent guys for the Pirates this season. And in five of his six starts, he's allowed three runs or less and the majority of them have been two runs or less. So, I am going to go ahead and back him

here. I think he is going to out pitch Singer over five innings. And why complicate it? Let's not have the bullpens involved. Let's just take the two pitchers where I think that's the better edge. And I'm going to take Mitch Keller. He is the veteran of the starting rotation. You've got schemes, you know, the side young winner, no question about that, but he's not having that dominant year that he's normally had. He's had a couple rough outings. Yesterday was not, you know, good. He gave up three runs in the first inning. But Keller's been that guy that's anchored it down for them and I think he stops this streak today.

I don't mind Pittsburgh for the game, but I like them a heck of a lot better first five and that's the right the route I'm going with this one. Yeah, I like it. Anytime we're cutting out the bullpens, just having to handicap half the game. It makes you know, I like cutting those wagers in half for sure. All right, let's talk O's and Yankees because the O's desperately need to start going on a run, man. I mean, the start to the season, ho-hum doesn't even begin to describe how it's been for them. They end April 15-16 just winning six of their last 15

games. And now they get to face off against the first place Yankees. Not only right now, they're going to be facing over these next two weeks, the Yankees in seven games. So, when you're trying to grasp for you know, you know, grab for straws here like the Orioles are looking to do, going up against a red hot Yankees team, probably not the best way to do it. Do you think they finally find some footing or is this just Yankees started off hot and likely continue hot? What do you think, Marco? Yeah, I think the Yankees got it rolling right now. Now, guys, they are returning from a nine game road trip and you know, I've talked about it many times on here.

You know, I'm on here on Friday, so it's always the start of a new series and a lot of times you're going to have teams change, you know, obviously changing cities, but you get a lot of teams returning home. And I like to fade those type of teams in most instances. But I will point out, the Yankees were on a nine game road trip and I would love generally to jump in front of them. But there's two things. One, they're on a red hot roll. And two, they did have yesterday off. That's key. When you return home off those road trips and you don't have that day off to settle in. And when I mean by settling in, I'm talking about take care of things at home, okay? You got a wife, a girlfriend, kids, whatever. They haven't

seen you. You've been on the road, you know, for a week and a half if you've been on a three game three city road trip like the Yankees were. So, they got that out of the way yesterday. And then couple that with the way they're playing and couple that with the way Baltimore's playing, you know, it to me it's, you know, don't overthink it. Let's ride the Yankees. Baltimore, things aren't going good. They haven't even committed to who's starting tonight. Last I looked, they were still undecided on, you know, who's going to you know, get the ball tonight to start this game, but we do know who's going for the Yankees. And that is going to be Will Warren. And you know, he's been in the zone. He's made

six starts this year and is yet to allow more than two runs in any start. And if you look at his last two starts, he's gone 13 innings. He allowed four runs total in those 13 innings of work, but here's the difference. We talked about strikeout to walk ratio in the last game we broke down. His strikeout to walk ratio in 13 innings of work is 17 to one, okay? When you've got that many strikeouts and very few walks, that tells me you are in full command of every pitch in your arsenal and you're fooling the hitters. So, let's make this simple, okay? Here's another one where we're you know, they're big number. We don't want to lay 175, 180 with this team. So, let's get them down where it's a manageable number. And how do we do that? We go

first five innings and we lay a half a run. If we think those Yankee bats are going to outperform the Baltimore bats in this one, then I have no problem laying that half a run. And the way he's pitching, I've got no problem with it. And here's a quirky stat. It's one of those ones where you say, this really doesn't make much sense. But I can tell you that the Yankees, for whatever reason when Warren's on the mound, and they're a favorite in that one minus 125 to 175 zone where right now they're between 175 and 80. So, they're right on the cusp of it. This team just scores you runs. It's amazing how some pitchers just get a tremendous run support while others don't. They're averaging in that situation 7.3

runs per game going back to last year when he starts in this price range. So, you know what? They're going to get him some run support. He's pitching well. Baltimore's a mess. The Yankees are hot. Let's lay a half a run first five, guys. Boom. Real quick on the way out, this great special that we have here to kick off May. You know, a lot of folks are going to take advantage of this one. 100 days off, 30 days of all access plus we're going to tack on a 10 days free. So, $40 of access when you're already getting that 30 for 100 off. This is a great deal to kick off the kick off May as we head into you know, the dog days

of summer. It ain't slowing down for guys like Marco. No, not at all. And you get this one with the 30 days, well, you're going to get the Derby package Saturday. You're going to get the Preakness in two weeks. So, and then with those 10 bonus days, damn, you're going to get the Belmont, too. So, you know, jump on it right now. That's the way to go. It's a the great deal. And if you can't go for the full month, we've got three days for 49. Don't forget that one, too. That's normally $69. You can pick up a three day package, which you know, if you do it Kentucky Oaks selections and I actually have three or four other races on the undercard or some horses I like on today's card along with my sports plays

today. Saturday, you know what you're getting the Derby and everything else. And then of course Sunday close out, you know, the weekend. There's no better time to buy a three day all access when it gets you Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Come on, guys. Be that weekend warrior and get out there and have some fun. And make some money. That's what's really fun.