Guardians vs. Pirates prediction and odds for Tuesday, July 18 (Can Keller Stop the Bleeding?)

Things got ugly at PNC Park last night. It went from a night of excitement with the Pittsburgh Pirates debuting Quinn Priester and Endy Rodriguez in front of Wiz Khalifa into a complete bloodbath. The Cleveland Guardians dominated to the tune of an 11-0 win and knocked Priester around for seven runs on seven hits over 5.1 innings. The Guardians are 46-48 and 1.5 games behind the Twins in the AL Central. The Pirates are 41-53 and spiraling.

The Pirates need to stop the bleeding so mercifully they’ll turn to Mitch Keller to make his 19th start of the season. Keller is 9-4 with a 3.31 ERA and will be opposed by 3-2 Logan Allen who has made 12 starts for Cleveland and has a 3.47 ERA. 

Somehow, the Pirates are actually favored today. Let’s take a look at the odds. 

Guardians vs. Pirates odds, run line and total

Guardians vs. Pirates prediction and pick

The Pirates have lost 11 of their last 13 games after last night’s beating and in that stretch they’ve been outscored 80-46. This team simply cannot get any hits. For the year, they are 24th in team OPS at .696, but since the end of April they are 29th at .651 and are 29th in runs scored at 232. Functionally they’re last in both categories because only the Oakland A’s are worse. In home runs they actually are last with 49. 

Today, they’ll face the lefty, Logan Allen and they have a few interesting matchups with lefties like Connor Joe who has mostly disappeared from the lineup lately, but has a .929 OPS against left-handed pitching. That’s nice, but it won’t change anything and Rodolfo Castro leads the team in at-bats and home runs against lefties and was just sent down to Triple-A. 

At least Mitch Keller is a legit All-Star and has pitched like a real ace for most of the season. That’s the only hope for the Pirates, but I will never bet this team as a favorite in any matchup. The under is the play in this one. It was last night too and it would have been a good bet if Quinn Priester didn’t look like Mitch Keller when Keller first got to the big leagues. 

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change