Brewers And Mariners Should Fly Over Total

Brewers vs. Mariners, 9:40 ET

There is some comfort for the teams who are in first place within a division. The second-place teams are the ones chasing, and they are not necessarily in control of their own destiny. Watching teams move up and down throughout the division is always interesting to me. If you're in first, someone will always be chasing, but with the Wild Card spots, the goal of these second-place teams is to battle for the division lead and try to secure one of the Wild Card spots. The only way to do that is to win, and both the Brewers and Mariners are looking for wins to steal either the division or put a stranglehold on a Wild Card spot. 

The Brewers are almost 20 games over .500, and they are currently in second place of the NL Central. If it wasn't for the Cubs, they would potentially be the number one team in the National League. For a team that continues to alter the roster and lose a lot of players, they have done a great job of finding ways to consistently win. The roster is not full of superstars, and they lost one of their best players in the offseason, yet they still hit. The rotation has few names you're familiar with, but they continue to twirl gems. It may not lead to postseason success, but getting there is half of the battle and if they can keep winning, they will find themselves there as either a division winner or Wild Card winner. Tonight, they send out Brandon Woodruff to the hill. For the season, he has just 10.1 innings under his belt, but has struck out 18 hitters and he has 1-0 with a 2.61 ERA and a 0.68 WHIP. All the runs he has allowed this season have come via the longball. That could bode well for Seattle's Cal Raleigh. Overall, the team is hitting just 10-for-31 against Woodruff (some of those stats are from pitchers, who no longer hit).

Milwaukee Brewers OF Christian Yelich hits a single against the Chicago Cubs at American Family Field. (Photo Credit: Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports)

The Mariners are in a similar boat to the Brewers. They are in second place of their division, but they should feel a lot less secure in their place than the Brewers. The Mariners are four games back of the division, but they are in the second Wild Card spot as well. They have quite a few teams chasing them down. The answer for both of these teams is the same - win games and they can find their way into the postseason. Seattle has improved on their hitting from last season, but their pitching has taken a bit of a step back. They are doing better than they had earlier in the season. George Kirby is on the hill today with a 4-4 record and a 4.50 ERA and 1.15 WHIP. Kirby has missed a lot of the season as well with just 54 innings under his belt. Kirby has done better at home than on the road, but it isn't like he has been flawless. Brewers hitters are just 2-for-15 against him. 

This should be a pretty evenly matched game. I think both pitchers have equal potential to allow four runs as they do to throw a complete shutout. Home runs are probably the big thing to avoid for both of them, but Kirby has been a bit better with that than Woodruff. For the game, I lean toward Seattle to win the game. Woodruff has pitched well, but it has been such a small sample size it isn't really worth it to me. I'm going to back the over 6.5 in this one. The number is too low for these pitchers. 

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