Wacha Will Keep Padres From Being Swept

Padres vs. Brewers, 2:10 ET

I had no baseball plays yesterday and it was kind of a nice day off from it. College football was back for us and must say, I was pretty happy to have another sport to watch even if there weren't that many games. Don't get me wrong, I love baseball and it has been a very profitable sport for me the past three years with Outkick (this one the least successful), but football season is always exciting, especially around the beginning. But, that is over, and now we return our focus to the baseball slate, specifically this matchup between the Padres and the Brewers.

What is left to say about these Padres? They lost yet again yesterday and are now on the verge of being swept by the Brewers. It isn't exactly a bad thing to be swept by Milwaukee, they likely are a playoff team, it is that they should be significantly better than they are, but they just aren't. We've seen fights between players, a lack of hustle, a number of issues, so the reasons are numerous. The really unique thing to me is that if you look at the team, their superstars are hitting pretty well overall, their starting pitching has been great, they have one of the best closers in baseball, it is confounding to see why they are going to end up with a sub-.500 record for the season. One of the aforementioned great starters is on the hill for them today. Michael Wacha has been great for them essentially since May (yes, he missed some of June and most of July). But, as I've covered in other posts about him, he has allowed just nine earned runs now over his last 70.2 innings. He once again was dominant in his last start, one we made a very nice chunk of change on as he allowed one earned run over 5.1 innings.

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - JULY 08: Christian Yelich #22 of the Milwaukee Brewers up to bat against the Cincinnati Reds at American Family Field on July 08, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by John Fisher/Getty Images)

The Brewers are like the bizarro world Padres - if you're familiar with Seinfeld, this is an easy reference. If not, it is essentially the exact opposite. The Brewers have a low payroll, don't have much name recognition on their team, and are actually not really doing anything better than the Padres with the exception of winning. Pull up the team stats and they have virtually the same batting average, but a lower run total, hit total, home run total, and a higher team ERA. But, what they do have is a record that is 15 games above .500 and control of their division for now. They are sending out Adrian Houser to try and complete the sweep over the Padres. Houser is one of those guys that is a strong contributor, but no one is building a rotation around. In many ways these are some of the most important pitchers in baseball. He's only turned in one quality start over his last four outings, but he has kept the Brewers in all four games and they've gone 3-1 in them. He doesn't get super deep into just about any game, but the Brewers bullpen does a nice job of finishing off his starts.

While Houser has been solid lately and even a reliable starter for the Brewers, he isn't locked in the way Wacha is. I'm going to continue to ride Wacha until the wheels fall off as well. This is pretty similar to the way I normally bet baseball, find an undervalued stud and hammer it until the books adjust. At just -118, I'll take my shot on the Padres, I also think the team total under for the Brewers is worth playing if it comes out at 4 or 4.5.

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