Angels-Rangers prediction: Picks, odds on Wednesday, June 14

The Los Angeles Angels have struck for two big wins in the first two games of their four-game set with the AL West-leading Texas Rangers, and now L.A. will try to sew up the series on Wednesday night. First pitch of game three from Globe Life Park is set for 8:05 p.m. ET. It’ll be a battle of mercurial but very talented lefties on the mound, as the Angels turn to Reid Detmers (1-5, 4.79 ERA) while Andrew Heaney (4-4, 4.14) goes for Texas.

The Rangers enter as -140 favorites on the moneyline at DraftKings Sportsbook, while the Halos are the +120 underdogs. The run total is set at 9.

Angels-Rangers picks: Wednesday, June 14

Injury report

Angels

Day to day: 1B/3B Gio Urshela (back)
Out: RP Ben Joyce (elbow), RP Matt Moore (oblique)

Rangers

Day to day: SP Jon Gray (finger blister)
Out: 1B Brad Miller (oblique)

Starting pitchers

Reid Detmers vs. Andrew Heaney

Detmers is among the league leaders in whiff rate and strikeout rate, but for whatever reason, it just hasn’t all come together for the young lefty in what was supposed to be a breakout year. Detmers is coming off his best outing of the season last time out, striking out eight in 5.2 innings of one-run ball against the Chicago Cubs, but we’ve seen flashes from him before that have been all too fleeting. When the southpaw is on, he has a plus slider and curveball that produce tons of swings and misses. When he’s not, though, his fastball catches too much of the plate and gets hit very hard.

Heaney has long been among the hardest pitchers to predict in all of baseball, capable of the brilliant and the baffling all in the course of a single start, and this year has been no exception. After a very strong close to the month of May, the lefty has struggled over his last two starts, giving up seven runs on 10 hits and six walks across eight innings of work. When he’s elevating his fastball and burying his slider, he’s very tough to hit, but that hasn’t happened nearly enough this season. (His slider carries a whiff rate of 34.2%, down from a gaudy 44.3% a year ago.) If the slider command locks in, look out — Heaney had been on a run of six quality starts in seven tries prior to June — but it’s anyone’s guess when that might happen.

Over/Under pick

Honestly, good luck figuring out what either of these starters are going to do tonight. They both have the potential to put up six or seven dominant innings; they also both have the potential to get knocked out before the third. In the end, I’m banking on something closer to the latter, as both of these lineups have been on a roll lately and hit left-handed pitching very well. With totals of 15 and 10 over the last two games and plenty of firepower on both sides, count on another slugfest tonight.

Pick: Over 9

Moneyline pick

Heaney has only had a couple of truly awful starts this year, while Detmers has been a bit harder to trust — and gave up three runs on seven hits in just four innings the first time he faced Texas this year. With the slight edge on the mound and a very deep lineup, I’ll back the home team as they look to avoid a four-game skid.