Blue Jays picks and odds vs. Guardians Aug. 10: Back Toronto to win in high-scoring series finale

The Toronto Blue Jays are going for their sixth win in seven games when they wrap up their road trip against the Cleveland Guardians on Thursday.

The pregame narrative: Toronto has at least earned itself a split but can take another series when these teams clash at 1:10 p.m. ET at Progressive Field. Struggling starters Alek Manoah and Noah Syndergaard are getting the assignments, which we believe will lead to plenty of offence.

Find out how we’re betting on the series finale in our Blue Jays picks for August 10 vs. the Guardians.

MLB oddsas of 9:48 a.m. ET on 08/10/2023.

Blue Jays picks vs. Guardians

Best Bet: Over 9.5 runs (-104)

The highest-scoring game in this series so far was Toronto’s 3-1 win on Monday. The last two contests have each been 1-0 games. We expect that trend to be blown up today.

Manoah has thrown better following his demotion but his control is still a concern and he should struggle to put away a Guardians lineup that is difficult to retire on strikes.

The 6-foot-6 right-hander has walked 14 batters in his last five starts. While he has only allowed more than three runs once in that span, walking that sort of tightrope is not a recipe for long-term success.

Manoah is unlikely to work out of those self-inflicted jams by pumping swing-and-miss stuff by the Guardians, either. Cleveland has the lowest strikeout rate in the majors and makes contact at the second-highest rate, per FanGraphs.

We expect the Guardians to plate runs against Manoah and anticipate Toronto doing the same versus Syndergaard.

The fellow 6-foot-6 righty has surrendered five-plus in four of his last five starts. His strikeout rate is at a career-worst mark and is the fourth-lowest in MLB among pitchers who have thrown at least 60 innings. At that same innings threshold, his 6.75 ERA is tied for the fifth-highest (Manoah’s is 16th at 5.72).

Toronto has struggled to hit this series, but this is a plus matchup to snap out of the funk.

On top of all that, both starters have also struggled to keep the ball in the yard. Syndergaard allowed four homers in his last start, and at least two in three of his last four. Manoah’s HR/9 (1.6) is the highest of his career.

We’re confident these two starters will get us close enough to this number in a game where we don’t expect either to work deep. That means we should only need a bit of damage from the bullpens for this to cash.

Key stat: Each of Syndergaard’s last seven starts has cleared this 9.5-run total.

Quick pick

Blue Jays to win (-134) : It’s clear that we have concerns about Manoah but he’s at least shown signs of promise since returning to the majors last month (4.26 ERA and an improved K rate).

Toronto has won four of his five starts. Cleveland has lost both of Syndergaard’s starts and the Los Angeles Dodgers lost each of the last four he made with them before being traded.

While Syndergaard only allowed one run on two hits in his Guardians debut, he struck out no one. Against a team that gets on base at the fifth-highest rate in the game, that’s going to be a problem.

Toronto has a top-10 offence by wRC+ and is fifth in batting average. Cleveland is below the league average in each of those three categories.

We’ll take the better offence and team — Toronto is 9.5 games above Cleveland and is tied for the most road wins in MLB — at a reasonable price.