Zach Eflin

Find year-round coverage of betting news and insights for all sports by visiting our Betting section and subscribing to push notifications.Wednesday was another successful night on the diamond as we once again won two of three best bets.We'll look to keep the momentum going with a couple more plays for Thursday's small card.Cardinals (-130) @ Brewers (+110)Sonny Gray is pitching as well as anybody right now. He's 4-1 with a 0.89 ERA and a 0.86 WHIP, and he's struck out 38 batters over just 30 innings of work.He's hammering the zone with strikes and wasting very few pitches. Gray's also giving up next to no quality contact. His barrel rate of 4.2% is approximately half the league average, while he has an extremely low xwOBA of .243. Gray's inducing grounders nearly 50% of the time, and his fly-ball rate of 23.9% is below average. He's posting remarkably strong numbers across the board.He should produce another quality start against a struggling Brewers offense. They've scored just seven total runs against the past seven right-handed starters faced.Getting Christian Yelich back from injury will help Milwaukee, but those outputs are still extremely concerning given the cast of characters the Brewers met in that time.Brady Singer, Seth Lugo, Javier Assad, Jameson Taillon, Hayden Wesneski, Zach Eflin, and Ryan Pepiot are a decent batch of pitchers, but it's not like the Brewers have run into a string of aces. Most of those guys are 3-5 pitchers.Gray is a big step up in class from what the Brewers have dealt with of late. He should keep their offense in check, positioning the Cardinals very well to break their losing streak.If the Cardinals' offense can muster up any sort of run support against Tobias Myers - who's conceded nine runs through 13 innings this season - they stand a great chance of winning this game.Bet: Cardinals (-130)Erick Fedde: Over 15.5 outsFedde's on a nice little run. He's recorded 17 or more outs in three of his past four starts, falling short only against the Cardinals.I think he's in a great spot to bounce back and chew up innings against the Guardians. They're a very good team but swing at a lot of pitches and don't draw many walks. That leads to a lot of balls put in play, which helps pitchers avoid extended at-bats and keep their pitch count low.Each of the nine previous right-handed starters the Guardians have faced managed to record 16 or more outs. The lone exception was Kenta Maeda, who allowed eight baserunners in just two innings of work a few days ago.So long as Fedde can avoid a hit parade, he has a great chance of going over this number. That doesn't seem a lot to ask - Fedde's allowed four or fewer hits in four of his past five starts.It's also worth noting Fedde is sporting a great .243 xwOBA against left-handed bats over the past month, and the Guardians' lineup is loaded with them.Odds: -125 (playable to -140)Todd Cordell is a sports betting writer at theScore. You can follow him on X at @ToddCordell.Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) Zach Eflin allowed one run and six hits in seven innings as the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Chicago White Sox 5-1 on Tuesday night for their fifth consecutive win. Eflin (2-4) lost the shutout when Paul DeJong homered with two outs in the seventh. The right-hander worked out of a bases-loaded, two-out jam in...

Find year-round coverage of betting news and insights for all sports by visiting our Betting section and subscribing to push notifications.We are off to a poor start to the week with MLB, but we have a jam-packed 15-game slate to pick from as we try to get back on track.Let's dive into a few plays that stand out from the rest.Zack Wheeler: Under 1.5 walksWheeler's a machine when it comes to limiting walks. Since the beginning of the 2022 campaign, he's gone under this number in 54 of 75 starts. That equates to an absurd 72% success rate.We've seen a spike in his walks lately, but all the underlying metrics suggest that's just a blip on the radar.Even if you isolate the last three games in which he recorded nine combined walks and throw the rest of his season data out the window, Wheeler has still thrown balls at a below-average rate. The 33-year-old's strike rates are also even better against right-handed batters, which he'll see many versus the Angels.Los Angeles isn't great at generating walks. The Angels sit 26th in walk rate against righties this season, and six of the past eight starters they've faced have avoided issuing multiple walks.With Wheeler facing a righty-heavy team that doesn't walk a lot, this is a great spot for him to get back on track.Odds: -135 (playable to -150)Corbin Burnes: Under 6.5 strikeoutsThe Yankees are nightmare fuel for right-handed starting pitchers. They rank second in xwOBA and walk percentage and lead the league in homers versus righties.New York also strikes out less than 20% of the time, which is hard to believe considering all the power in its lineup.Making matters worse for opposing pitchers is the team's consistency. The Yankees play with the same plate discipline every game.That's why not a single opposing right-handed starter has recorded seven strikeouts in a contest against New York this season.The Yankees have faced 21 right-handed starters in 2024, including Kevin Gausman (twice), Chris Bassitt, Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Grayson Rodriguez, and Zach Eflin. And New York didn't allow one of those guys to record seven Ks.Burnes has posted six strikeouts or fewer in five straight starts. He's also posted worse numbers against lefties and will have to deal with multiple good ones in Juan Soto, Anthony Rizzo, and potentially Alex Verdugo (if he returns from paternity leave).I don't see this being a spot where Burnes flips the script and puts forth a ceiling performance.Odds: -140 (playable to -160)Yoshinobu Yamamoto: Over 5.5 strikeoutsThe Diamondbacks are generally a tough opponent to strike out, but their play has dipped lately, particularly against right-handed pitching.Last week versus Arizona, Logan Gilbert and George Kirby combined for 21 Ks over a two-game span, and pitchers Kyle Gibson (six strikeouts) and Lance Lynn (seven) put forth ceiling performances.Yamamoto struck out better than 33% of the batters he faced in April. He's also above 30% against righties and lefties, so it doesn't much matter how the Diamondbacks construct their lineup against him.It's also worth noting that Yamamoto has gone over this number in four consecutive starts, coinciding with his pitch count rising above 80.He's fully stretched out now and routinely throwing 90-plus pitches. With such electric stuff, six strikeouts isn't much to ask.Odds: +115 (playable to -115)Todd Cordell is a sports betting writer at theScore. You can follow him on X at @ToddCordell.Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.