Subscribe
Follow Us
The San Diego Padres travel to the Steel City to play the Pittsburgh Pirates. It's time to continue our MLB odds series with a Padres-Pirates prediction, pick, and how-to-watch.
The Padres lost two of three to the Nationals over the weekend. After two straight games of scoring ten or more runs, the Padres managed just three runs in their last two games. San Diego now finds its playoff hopes rapidly fading. They have won just four of their last six games while sitting 37-41 for the season. That places them 9.5 games behind the Diamondbacks in the division, and 6.5 games behind the Dodgers for the last wild-card spot.
Meanwhile, the Pirates lost three of four to the Marlins over the weekend. They have now lost 12 of their last 13 games. Just about everything is going wrong for the Pirates. They were once 34-30 and in sole possession of first place. Now they are seven games under .500 and the Twitter account claiming Andrew McCutchen was going nowhere turned out to be fake.
Here are the Padres-Pirates MLB odds, courtesy of FanDuel.
MLB Odds: Padres-Pirates Odds
San Diego Pirates: -1.5 (-110)
Pittsburgh Pirates: +1.5 (-110)
Over: 9 (-104)
Under: 9 (-118)
How To Watch Padres vs. Pirates
TV: SDPA/ATTP
Stream: MLB.TV
Time: 7:05 PM ET/ 4:05 PM PT
*Watch MLB games LIVE with fuboTV (click for a free trial)*
Why The Padres Could Cover The Spread
Article Continues Below
The Padres need to find consistency on offense. In the last ten games, they have scored over ten runs twice while also scoring two or fewer four times. This has led to an offense that ranks 21st in the majors in runs scored, while sitting 15th in OBP, 24th in batting average, and 19th in slugging. It was Xander Bogaerts that called out the team after their recent offensive embarrassments. After an amazing start to the season in which he hit over .300 while driving in 16 runs in the first month, he has cooled off. This month he is hitting .250 with an OBP of .325. He has scored just seven times while driving in just seven runs. He has just one home run and five doubles on the month.
Juan Soto is playing better as of late though. Soto is hitting .296 this month while driving in 15 runs and walking 19 times. His OBP this month is .427, and he has scored 13 times. He has even shown a little power, hitting four home runs and five doubles. Still, he has been striking out a lot, striking out 21 times this month. Fernando Tatis Jr. has been the hottest bat on the team. This month he is hitting .363 with an OBP of .453. He has six home runs on the month and now leads the team in home runs. He has also driven in 17 runs and scored 21 times this month. If those two can keep up the hot hitting, while Bogaerts, Manny Machado, and Jake Cronenworth pick up their bats, the Padres could get back into the thick of a playoff race.
They will need solid pitching to do that though. Yu Darvish needs to be part of that. He is 5-6 on the year with a 4.84 ERA. He has struggled in his last three starts though. In his last three starts, he has given up four or more runs in each of them. He has also not pitched more than six innings in each of them. Darvish has not been able to go late into games this year. He has pitched seven full innings just twice in the season. He is 1-1 in those starts, as the first time he did it, the Padres were shut out back in April.
Why The Pirates Could Cover The Spread
This season the Pirates are 24th in the majors in runs scored with an average of 4.06 runs per game. They are 21st in batting average, 21st in on-base percentage, and 25th in slugging so far this year. In the process of losing 12 of their last 13 games, they have scored just 30 runs. That is an average of just 2.31 runs per game, and they have been shut out four times.
Ke'Bryan Hayes has been one of the best bats in the lineup as of late. He is hitting .337 so far this month, with three home runs a triple, and four doubles. He has driven in 13 runs as well while scoring eight times. The biggest negative is he has not drawn a walk since May 22nd. In the last week, he has just two RBIs though. Even worse for the Pirates, he is one of just two players who has more than one RBI in the last week. The other one is Carlos Santana who has three over the last week. Those three are part of 13 RBIs he has on the month with the help of three home runs. He is hitting just .224 for the month though, and has struck out 15 times.
On the note of strikeouts, the Pirates need to figure out what to do with Jack Suwinski. He struck out five times in the Marlins series, with four of those coming in one game. Suwinski has 19 strikeouts on the month, and when he is not striking out, he is not making a ton of good contact. He is hitting just .151 this month. He does have four home runs and a double, meaning five of his eight hits for the month are for extra bases.
The 43-year-old Rich Hill will be on the mound for the Pirates today. He is 6-7 on the year with a 4.34 ERA. He has been better in June. In four starts he has pitched 24.1 innings while giving up 12 runs. The defense behind him has let him down a lot though, as only nine of those runs were earned. Those three unearned runs all resulted in losses for Rich Hill, as he is 2-2 on the month.
Final Padres-Pirates Prediction & Pick
These are two teams both trending in the wrong direction. The Pirates were a surprise to start the year but now find themselves in fourth place in the division and 5.5 games out of first. The offense has been awful and even when they are hitting, the pitching is not doing much to help them. The same could be said about the Padres. The offense has struggled to score runs and when they have, often the pitching has let them down. Darvish is the better pitcher today though. With two teams both struggling to get hits, the better pitcher is the one to back.
Final Padres-Pirates Prediction & Pick: Padres -1.5 (-110)
