Guardians Will Get To Gausman In Toronto

Guardians vs. Blue Jays, 7:07 ET

I've talked about this a few times over the course of the season, but sometimes you look at pitching matchups, or even just games in general and think the books made a mistake. In reality, books don't exactly make mistakes (I did once bet over 110.5 for a full game NBA game and they immediately voided the bet claiming it was clearly an incorrect line). The edge we have over the book is not that they are making mistakes, and even analytically they are almost certainly more talented and resourced than any individual bettor. The edge is that we choose what to play and provide determination of value on the plays. I'm choosing to play a game between the Guardians and the Blue Jays. 

I'd love to tell you that the Guardians are the best team in baseball and it is a miracle story. They aren't the best team in baseball, but they are very good. They've run their record to 20 games over .500 and are even five games up in their division at the moment. They have a true superstar in Jose Ramirez. This is not my independent thought, but I certainly agree with it: If Ramirez was in New York or somewhere like that, he would be getting significantly more attention. As it is, he leads the team in average, homers, and RBIs, but this really isn't anything new if you've been following the guy for years. For the season, the Guardians offense has been very sharp, hitting .239 and scoring 332 runs. It doesn't seem like those two numbers should really align, and eventually I do think the team starts to regress to the mean a bit. Their pitching has been strong enough to keep them in games with a 3.43 team ERA and a 1.17 WHIP. Tonight, they send out Logan Allen to the rubber in hopes of taking the series opener against the Blue Jays. Allen has not had the best season, with four starts of four or more earned runs allowed. Last month, he was shelled in two separate games against the Rockies and the Tigers. He lasted just four combined innings in those games and allowed 14 earned runs. He did rebound nicely in his last game against the Marlins, turning in a quality start. He allowed two solo homers to account for all of the damage against him. Blue Jays hitters are 7-for-26 against him, so not bad, but not a ton of sample to go from there. 

TORONTO, ON - MAY 16:  Kevin Gausman #34 of the Toronto Blue Jays delivers a pitch in the first inning against the New York Yankees at Rogers Centre on May 16, 2023 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  (Photo by Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)

The Blue Jays are essentially treading water right now. They consistently find themselves within sniffing distance of a .500 record, but they aren't doing enough to get over the hill quite yet. The offense has been poor for the majority of the season, and the team is somewhat on the fence about trading away players or trying at add an impact bat to their lineup. The team has just 56 home runs for the season, so they certainly could use some help there. Just to give you a bit of perspective though, the Blue Jays have four fewer hits than the Guardians, but have scored 67 fewer runs this season. That's kind of difficult to do. The offense hasn't quite pulled its weight, but I wouldn't say the pitching staff has either. Tonight they turn to Kevin Gausman to push them off to a good start in the series. Gausman has been a bit of a mixed bag this season with a 5-4 record, 4.00 ERA, and a 1.25 WHIP. He is coming off of his best start of the season, a complete game, 10-strikeout shutout of the Oakland Athletics. For those casual fans out there, the Guardians are slightly better than the Athletics (he said sarcastically). Still, it was an impressive performance, especially after his previous outing where he went 6.1 innings and allowed six earned runs with three home runs. Guardians hitters don't have a ton of success to speak of against Gausman with just 11 hits in 48 tries. Jose Ramirez is arguably the worst of them all with just four hits in 20 at-bats. 

I mentioned I think the books have this game wrong a bit. The reason is, the Guardians are clearly the better team in this game. The pitching matchup is almost certainly in favor of the Blue Jays, and that means a lot. However, we shouldn't pretend that Gausman is as sharp as his Cy Young season. He's been vulnerable in many games this year. I'll take a shot on the Guardians to win this one. 

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