New York (Severino) -127 at Tampa Bay (Ramirez) O/U 8
Recommendation: New York

The Yankees red hot lineup got cooled off by Danny Duffy last night, but I’m not expecting any sort of longer term decline. A squad that leads the majors with 17 games this season in which they’ve produced seven runs or more is live to do it again tonight in Tampa against Rays spot starter Erasmo Ramirez. This is a lineup worthy of support following a loss in which they got shut down completely; 8-2 in their last ten games on the highway.

And the Yanks are catching Tampa in a ‘fat and happy’ spot, returning home off their first winning road trip in nearly a year. The Rays just hit ten home runs in Cleveland in their three game series, now returning home to the Trop where the ball just doesn’t carry as well as it does in most other ballparks. This Rays lineup is not primed to batter Luis Severino and the elite Yankees bullpen behind him.

Severino’s advanced metric stats are truly stellar. His xFIP is sitting at 2.87, nearly a full run lower than his ERA. Severino has an excellent 50% ground ball rate and he’s striking out more than ten batters per nine innings while walking only two. Severino held the Rays to two runs on five hits while striking out 11 batters in a dominant seven inning performance in his lone start against Tampa this year. His numbers this season and for his career clearly show that the best place to back Severino is on the highway, because he just doesn’t allow many home runs in pitcher friendly venues like this one.

Behind Severino, the Yanks rank #2 in MLB in bullpen ERA, suffering only three bullpen losses all year. The Rays bullpen has suffered ten losses already and they rank outside the top half of MLB in bullpen ERA. That’s bad news with Ramirez on the hill, because he’s not going to eat up many innings, lasting only five in his lone previous start this season and coming off a 28 pitch effort out of the bullpen on Sunday. Short road chalk worth laying!