Expect Gonsolin's Dominance to Continue Against Brewers
Sometimes you find trends or things that happen in a season and you need to ride them as far as you can. We talked about this with Merrill Kelly yesterday, and that was fine... until the bullpen blew it. I've been riding this play all year and I'm not going to stop now.
Tony Gonsolin, if he were allowed more than five innings consistently, probably would be making a strong push for the National League Cy Young award. Well, okay, maybe not a strong push, because Sandy Alcantara might still have that locked up. In any case, the man is still fourth in the majors with a 2.24 ERA. He has put together quite the campaign and not only keeps the Dodgers in the game, but rarely allows the opposition to make any traction. He doesn't allow many walks, typically, and hits off of him are usually pretty limited.
In August, Gonsolin allowed just one earned run in 11.2 innings. In his most recent outing, the Royals scored three runs in the game, two of those came off the bullpen in the final 2.1 innings. Prior to that, Gonsolin's opponents have scored four or more runs just twice since May 22. On the season, opponents have scored four or more runs against him just four times. That's insanely good. Gonsolin is not as great on the road as he has been at home though, he has almost a normal ERA at 2.98. He hasn't faced Milwaukee, but I think he probably will dominate them tonight.
I'm taking the Brewers under 3.5 runs at -130. It is highly juiced and might not take much to get over the total, but it just makes sense. They didn't score at all in the first game and yesterday it took 11 innings to score 5 runs. Over their last five games, their run totals are 5 (yesterday), 0, 3, 3, 1.
