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The Cleveland Guardians take on the Colorado Rockies. Check out our MLB odds series for our Guardians Rockies prediction and pick.
Shane Bieber will start for the Guardians, while Antonio Senzatela gets the call for the Rockies.
Shane Bieber has a 2.91 ERA. He has done a very good job for Cleveland through the first two months of the season. His reliability has been a central reason the Guardians are squarely in the American League wild card chase. Bieber is an innings-eating pitcher. He has thrown six innings or more in seven of his 11 starts. He has pitched 65 innings, making him one of the leaders in the majors through two months of play. His ERA is impressive, but it would be much lower if not for one miserable start on May 7 against the potent Blue Jays: 3 1/3 innings pitched, seven runs allowed. Bieber has allowed 23 runs this season, and nearly one-third came in one of his 11 starts. He has allowed a total of just 16 runs in his other 10 starts, and again, he has pitched deep into most of those starts. He has pitched like an ace for much of the year. Cleveland hopes this continues.
Antonio Senzatela has a 4.83 ERA. What might surprise you about a pitcher with an ERA this high is that Senzatela allows very few homers and walks. He has given up just three homers and walked only nine in 41 innings. Those are great numbers. So what's the problem? He can't get hitters to swing and miss. Senzatela has struck out only 20 batters in his 41 innings this year. He has given up a whopping 67 hits. Given that only three are homers, that's a lot of singles and doubles. He has allowed opponents to stack hits together, and he has not pitched out of jams very well. Senzatela has had a few really good starts, including his most recent outing on June 8 against the Giants, going six innings and allowing only one run. He hasn't been able to string good starts together; they have been occasional occurrences to this point in 2022. The Rockies need him to raise his floor and strike more hitters out.
Courtesy of FanDuel, here are the Guardians-Rockies MLB odds.
MLB Odds: Guardians-Rockies Odds
Cleveland Guardians: -1.5 (-118)
Colorado Rockies: +1.5 (-102)
Over: 11 (-114)
Under: 11 (-106)
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Why The Guardians Could Cover the Spread
Shane Bieber is a much better pitcher than Antonio Senzatela right now. He is more consistent and shows signs of being able to avoid the Coors Field demons which often affect pitchers who don't usually pitch in that stadium over the course of a season. The Guardians are a better team than the Rockies, having carved out a competitive position in the American League wild card chase. Cleveland's Jose Ramirez is the best player on either roster. The Guardians are generally a more dependable team. They did not collapse the way the Rockies did a few weeks ago.
Why The Rockies Could Cover the Spread
After weeks of really bad baseball, the Rockies have picked things up. They won a series on the road against the Giants and then split a four-game road series against the Padres over the weekend. Their starting pitching has gotten better, offering signs of a revival with roughly 100 games still left in the season, plenty of time to make a significant push for a wild card spot. The Rockies look a million times better than they did when the Braves swept them in Coors over a week ago.
Final Guardians-Rockies Prediction & Pick
If Shane Bieber pitches at the level he has demonstrated for the first two months of the season, the Guardians should hold the Rockies to three or four runs. Cleveland would need to score seven or eight runs to hit the over or create a push. The under looks like a good play, especially since the Rockies' pitching is improving.
Final Guardians-Rockies Prediction & Pick: Under 11
