San Francisco Giants (57-57) vs Arizona Diamondbacks (53-61)
Monday, August 15, 2022 at 9:45 pm
The D-Backs have been playing good ball but this is a putrid spot for them and I have to take the plus money with the home team on the RL. The Giants do a great job at putting the ball in the air as SFG owns the second-lowest groundball % as a team offensively. That does not bode well for an LHP starter in MadBum who is known to be a groundball pitcher but has allowed a lot more fly balls as of late and is getting burned by them. Bumgarner struck out a lot of Pirates last time out but I think that was more of a fluke than anything else. Bumgarner has allowed at least four earned runs in four of his last five starts and at least one homer in three of his last four. The Giants hit LHP much better than RHP and I think they can find 3-4 runs on Bumgarner through the first 5 innings. On the other side, the Dbacks put on an offensive clinic in the final two games of that Coors Field series, but it is really difficult to play at Coors on no day's rest. Alex Cobb has a 4.15 ERA but a 2.96 xERA, 2.92 FIP, 2.83 xFIP, and 3.09 SIERA so he has been a bit unlucky in 2022. Despite a 2-6 record, Cobb has been sharper at home with a 3.00 ERA and an OBA of .222. I think the Dbacks' bats are sluggish enough for the Giants to cover this game on the RL. I don't love SFG bullpen at all, but I think Cobb can give us 6-7 innings and we will only have to sweat 2-3 innings from the pen. Not to mention, the Dbacks' pen was used heavily in Coors and is also very thin. I will lay the -1.5 with SFG.