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The Cleveland Guardians take on the Minnesota Twins. Check out our MLB odds series for our Guardians Twins prediction and pick.
Triston McKenzie gets the call for the Guardians, while Sonny Gray goes to the hill for the Twins.
Triston McKenzie has a 2.96 ERA. He has established himself as one of the better and more promising young starting pitchers in baseball. McKenzie has allowed a .185 opposing batting average this season, second in the majors among all qualifying pitchers. That is hugely impressive. McKenzie has allowed more than three runs in only two of his 12 starts this season. One thing to note about his progression in 2022 is that McKenzie was limited by the truncated spring training schedule due to MLB's labor-management conflict. McKenzie did not throw more than 4 1/3 innings in any of his first three starts of the season back in April. He wasn't getting hit hard; Terry Francona simply didn't want to overextend him. He wanted to make sure McKenzie could slowly work his way into the season and get stretched out properly. That approach clearly worked.
Since the beginning of May, McKenzie has thrown at least six full innings in each of his eight starts. He is a workhorse who is delivering the goods for Cleveland. He has become a core reason the Guardians are tied with the Twins atop the American League Central.
Sonny Gray has a 2.09 ERA, but he has not pitched very much this season. He missed the last two weeks of April and the first week of May. Then he missed the first two weeks of June. When he pitched on June 15 and pitched five scoreless innings against the Mariners in Seattle, that was his first appearance since May 29. Gray has pitched fewer than 39 innings this season, averaging under five innings per appearance. It remains to be seen how much stamina he will have for this performance, and how many innings he will be able to pitch in future months for the Twins, whose bullpen already gets a considerable workout when Chris Archer starts games for them.
Courtesy of FanDuel, here are the Guardians-Twins MLB odds.
MLB Odds: Guardians-Twins Odds
Cleveland Guardians: +1.5 (-154)
Minnesota Twins: -1.5 (+128)
Over: 8.5 (-115)
Under: 8.5 (-105)
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Why The Guardians Could Cover the Spread
The Guardians continue to play great baseball. They have won six straight series, which is phenomenal. They just won a road weekend series against the Dodgers. They came to Minnesota and won an 11-inning game after trailing 5-3 entering the eighth inning. They are getting well-rounded and balanced contributions from their roster. They are coming back from late-inning deficits. They are getting big outs from starters and the bullpen. They are putting all the pieces together. They have definitely played better than the Twins in recent weeks. The Twins just lost a weekend series to the sub-.500 Arizona Diamondbacks. This is beginning to feel like Cleveland's division to lose.
Why The Twins Could Cover the Spread
After losing on Tuesday to the Guardians, the Twins — tied with Cleveland in the standings — know this is a very big ballgame and a moment to announce their presence to the Guardians. The Twins have been the best team in the American League Central for most of the season before this recent Cleveland surge. If you trust the Twins more than the Guardians, this is the game to pick Minnesota.
Final Guardians-Twins Prediction & Pick
If you are not sure which A.L. Central team is better, just go with the under, given that both starters are very good pitchers.
Final Guardians-Twins Prediction & Pick: Under 8.5
