Cubs vs. Reds Prediction: MLB Picks & Odds

Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds Prediction - MLB Picks

Date: July 2

Time: 7:07 pm ET

Where: Great American Ballpark

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Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds Probable Pitchers

• Cubs: Alec Mills (3-1, 5.11 ERA)
• Reds: Sonny Gray (1-4, 3.42 ERA)

The Cubs and Reds will begin a divisional series over the weekend with both teams extremely close in the standings. The Reds are 40-40 on the season while the Cubs remain ahead a couple games in the NL Central with a 42-39 record.

The Cubs have struggled as of late losing seven of their last 10 games. The team has a 16-26 record on the road and will be visiting Cincinnati for this series.

Now they’ll send out Alec Mills who has not been very good this season. He’ll look to provide this team with any kind of momentum moving forward.

In June, Mills only threw 14 innings and allowed 20 hits with six runs along with six walks. He didn’t allow a single home run in June and has been good limiting the long ball on the year.

The one thing Mills does extremely well is getting ground balls. Mills induced 28 grounders to 18 fly balls in June and has 21 more ground balls to fly balls on the season.

However, earlier this year, he faced the Reds in May. In that May outing, he lasted one inning and allowed three runs.

Tucker Barnhart started the 6th inning Mills pitched in with an infield single. Mills then struck out a batter but ended up hitting Jesse Winker with a pitc. After that, he allowed a single to left field and loaded up the bases.

The next batter was Joey Votto and he also struck out, however, Mills ended up hitting his second batter in the inning when he faced Mike Moustakas. After that hit-by-pitch Eugenio Sureaz singled in two more runs to left field and just like that the Reds had three runs against Mills.

So while Mills doesn’t allow a high amount of home runs, he has struggled with walks, hit batsmen and teams have a batting average of balls in play of .345 against him. He currently has a WHIP of 1.59, which is worse than most pitchers on tonight’s MLB slate.

On the other hand, Sonny Gray will get the start for the Reds. The veteran has been sneaky good this season. However, he hasn’t pitched since June 8 due to an injury and also hasn’t pitched more than five innings in any game since May in the MLB.

It’ll be hard to rely on Gray in this start because at this point, it’s a pretty sure thing Gray won’t be going the distance in this game, meaning the bullpen of the Reds will be showcased tonight.

Because of that, I’m not going to worry about Sonny Gray and how he pitched. Instead, I’ll back the Reds offense, at home, where they average over 1.5 more runs compared to on the road.

Mills will put plenty of runners on base in this game and even if the Reds struggle to find power against Mills, they’ll at least put the ball in play.

And you know what they say. Good things happen when you put the ball in play. So let’s roll with the Reds over 4.5 on the team total. They’re not guaranteed nine innings but going up against Mills, eight innings should be more than enough to cash this team total ticket.

Chicago Cubs vs. Cincinnati Reds Prediction: Reds Over 4.5 TT @ -130