Mariners vs. White Sox prediction and odds for Wednesday, Aug. 23 (Nine straight?)
Make it eight straight wins for the Seattle Mariners.
Last night, they beat the Chicago White Sox 6-3 to extend their win-streak and pull within a game of the first place Texas Rangers in the AL West at 71-55.
Seattle has a chance to finish off the sweep today in Chicago with the White Sox at 49-77.
For this afternoon start on the southside of Chicago, the Mariners will go with George Kirby against Michael Kopech. Kirby is 10-8 in 24 starts with a 3.23 ERA while Kopech is 5-11 with a 5.12 ERA in 23 starts.
The red-hot Mariners are favored to win another one and extend their streak to nine.
Julio Rodriguez was on fire at the plate and his efforts were carrying the Mariners to this win streak, but he’s been out for the past two games and it hasn’t hurt them one bit.
They’ve scored 20 runs in those two games with J-Rod and last night it was their No. 9 hitter, Josh Rojas who led the way and drove in two runs with a homer.
Today, they won’t need their lineup to carry them to another win because George Kirby is taking the mound. He struggled a bit last time out, allowing four runs in six innings, but he just never gets himself into big trouble because of his absurdly low walk rate.
He has the lowest walk rate in baseball, 2.4%, just 14 walks in 150.2 innings.
In August, the White Sox are 27th in OPS and are 28th in homers with just 17, so as long as Kirby keeps the bases clear he’ll be fine. Chicago needs to string hits together to score runs, and they don’t do that very often.
These are two completely opposite starting pitchers. Michael Kopech has one of the highest walk rates in baseball, 14.7%, which is disastrous for him.
Both have a strikeout rate of 22%, but to survive with a walk rate so high, you need to generate much more swing and miss than Kopech does.
There’s no way I could be against the hottest team in baseball, especially not when they have such a huge starting pitching advantage. Give me the Mariners, who could very well find themselves in first place tomorrow.
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change
