Blue Jays picks and props vs. Diamondbacks, July 16: Bet on a Gabriel Moreno revenge game

The Toronto Blue Jays look to break out the brooms against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Sunday.

The pregame narrative: Toronto held Arizona to two runs in each of the past two games but the Dbacks’ bats should wake up today. We’re specifically eyeing a former Jay — Gabriel Moreno —to rake against Yusei Kikuchi.

MLB odds as of 9:33 a.m. ET on 07/16/23.

Blue Jays picks vs. Diamondbacks

Best Bet: Moreno over 1.5 bases (+185)

He was traded alongside Lourdes Gurriel Jr. last offseason for Daulton Varsho. Varsho has been a great defensive asset for Toronto but his bat — at least so far — hasn’t nearly measured up to what a player like Moreno is capable of.

We’re expecting the Dbacks catcher to give Jays fans another reminder of what they’re missing out on.

Moreno is slashing .377/.400/.565 against left-handed pitching this season with nine extra-base hits in 69 at-bats (13.0%). He’ll be going up against a struggling Kikuchi and that seems like a recipe for success to us.

Kikuchi’s season-long 4.24 ERA is serviceable but his 5.19 FIP indicates things have been a little dicey and his last two outings have been flat-out poor. The lefty allowed nine earned runs and 15 hits in 9.1 innings pitched.

Key stat: Moreno is hitting .400/.526/.600 in July (six games).

Quick pick

Diamondbacks over 4.5 runs (+112): Arizona’s 4.87 runs per game are the ninth-most in baseball. The team’s bats have been stifled this series but Kikuchi’s recent form is reason enough for us to suspect a regression to the mean.

The Dbacks have done well to hit left-handed pitching for average (.256, 12th in MLB) but have struggled to find power (.410 SLG, 17th in MLB).

Kikuchi’s biggest weakness is that he allows plenty of hard contact. He owns an 11th-percentile xSLG (.478) and a 13th-percentile barrel rate (10.8), according to Baseball Savant. Arizona should be able to get after him.