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The San Francisco Giants take on the Atlanta Braves. Check out our MLB odds series for our Giants Braves prediction and pick.
Logan Webb gets the assignment for the Giants, while Max Fried takes the bump for the Braves.
Logan Webb has a 3.43 ERA. His 13 starts this season can be divided into two subgroups. In his five best starts, he has pitched 34 innings and allowed five runs. In his other eight starts, he has pitched 44 2/3 innings and allowed 26 runs. Webb has been great at avoiding home runs this season. He has allowed only five in his 13 starts, and three of them came in one game. He is, however, allowing nearly one hit per inning: 73 hits in 78 2/3 innings. Some of this is bad BABIP luck, but 13 starts into a season, a pitcher begins to form more of an identity and a track record over the course of a season. If Webb wants to produce at an ace-like level, he needs to make significant improvements in the coming weeks and then hit his stride after the All-Star break.
Max Fried has a 2.90 ERA. He had a 5.73 ERA after his first two starts of the season and then shaved that ERA down to 2.68 by allowing just four runs in his next four starts, encompassing 26 innings. Fried's ERA rose to 3.31 after two mediocre starts, but in his next four starts, Fried has pushed his ERA down to 2.64 by once again giving up four runs over four starts in a sequence of 26 innings. That is quite remarkable. Fried has had two different four-start series this year in which he has given up four runs in 26 innings. He struggled in his most recent outing last week against the Nationals (four runs allowed in 5 2/3 innings), but maybe he'll start another 26-inning string of excellence on Monday.
Courtesy of FanDuel, here are the Giants-Braves MLB odds.
MLB Odds: Giants-Braves Odds
San Francisco Giants: +1.5 (-172)
Atlanta Braves: -1.5 (+142)
Over: 8 (-112)
Under: 8 (-108)
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Why The Giants Could Cover the Spread
Logan Webb showed last year that he is a big-game pitcher. This rates as a relatively big game, given that the Giants and Braves are both in the National League wild card chase but don't have comfortable positions in the standings. The Padres and Cardinals are also in the wild card mix, meaning that one of the Giants or Braves could easily be the one team out of luck in the N.L. wild card pursuit. It's only June, but this series is important because it will give one team more leverage in the chase for the No. 6 seed (at least) in the Senior Circuit. Logan Webb is not going to be intimidated by this moment.
Why The Braves Could Cover the Spread
Max Fried has endured a few stumbles, but he has put together a lot of high-quality starts in recent weeks. He will not take a back seat to Webb in a battle of high-end pitchers. The Giants have not hit well in recent weeks. Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford have not been healthy this season, and it shows. San Francisco has the pitching to be a top team, but the bats get shut down far too often, and that's a point of differentiation compared to the 2021 team which won almost 110 regular-season games.
Final Giants-Braves Prediction & Pick
The Braves went on a big winning binge in recent weeks, while the Giants have done relatively well but have still been prone to some low-output games from their offense. Two elite pitchers are going up against each other. This seems like a coin flip, which is precisely the kind of situation in which you shouldn't bet.
If you insist on making a pick, taking the underdog plus a run and a half makes sense.
Final Giants-Braves Prediction & Pick: Giants +1.5
