Chicago Cubs vs. San Diego Padres Best Bet: Can Drew Smyly Quiet the Padres' Bats?
Chicago Cubs vs. San Diego Padres Best Bet: Can Drew Smyly Quiet the Padres' Bats?
The Cubs take on the Padres in game two of a three-game set in Wrigley Field tonight after a 6-0 shutout win last night. The Cubs have been having a nice comeback season so far after an underwhelming 2022 campaign, and some new additions to the roster have Cubs fans hoping that they can make it back to the postseason this year. One piece of the Cubs' success has been Drew Smyly, who is 2-1 with a 3.13 ERA early in the season. Smyly will try and make it a series win for the Cubs with a win tonight, and there's a specific prop I love on him tonight.
Cubs vs. Padres Start Time and Where to Watch
- Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2023
- Game Time: 7:40 pm ET
- Where to Watch: MLB.TV
Chicago Cubs vs. San Diego Padres Prediction
Smyly opened the season with a tough outing against the Cincinnati Reds, allowing six runs in 4.2 innings, but he has had three good outings back-to-back-to-back since then. Two of those came against the Dodgers, including his last outing on April 21st, where he pitched 7.2 scoreless innings with ten strikeouts. I like him to have another good outing here against the struggling Padres.
The Padres have not been great to start the season offensively. In fact, they have been flat-out horrible. The Padres are dead last in team batting average at .214, and they have the fifth-lowest OPS. The one bright light has been that they have drawn the fifth-most walks in the league, but they have not been able to convert them into runs.
The Padres are 27th in runs per game. More importantly, for our bet tonight, they have also been striking out a lot. As a team, the Padres are 20th in strikeout rate in the league at 24.5%. They have been even worse on the road, where they have struck out in 26.8% of plate appearances, which is the fifth-highest strikeout rate in the MLB. Now, enter the conditions in Wrigley Field.
The Padres are a team from San Diego. They are not used to the cold, and they probably hate it. We see warm-weather teams play poorly in cold conditions all the time, and a great example is the Padre's 0-run outing last night. Well, it's another very cold night in Chicago, as the game time temp will be about 42 degrees, and there is wind blowing in from center.
Cold conditions tend to already favor pitchers but add in the Padres are a California team playing in the cold, and the pitcher advantage goes up even more for Smyly. Justin Steele is not much of a strikeout pitcher either, just like Smyly, but Steele had five strikeouts in just five innings of work last night. The line for Smyly is 4.5 tonight, and I think this is too low in these conditions against a Padres team struggling at the plate.
In the last outing Smyly had against the Padres, he racked up ten strikeouts. We only need half of that here. Smyly is averaging .9 strikeouts per innings so far, which means we only need about 5.1 or 5.2 to cash this worst-case scenario. However, the Padres are struggling so much at the plate right now that I wouldn't be surprised to see Smyly get close to another double-digit strikeout outing like he had last time against them. This one is a no-brainer.
Chicago Cubs vs. San Diego Padres Best Bet
Pick: Drew Smyly O4.5 Strikeouts -118 is currently the best odds. Click here to find out which sportsbook has the best odds for this pick
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Article Author
Ben Rajavuori is a handicapper out of Minneapolis, MN. He has been creating sports content for almost four years now and is an expert in all things NFL, MLB, NBA, UFC, and NCAAB. Ben thrives on diving deep into statistics to find the best angle on every bet. You can follow him on Twitter @WeBeatTheSpread.