Blue Jays vs. Rays Prediction and Odds for Friday, September 23 (Tampa's Pitching Makes it Two in a Row)

The Tampa Bay Rays took the first of an important series against the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday night, 10-5.

The Toronto Blue Jays will try to respond tonight with Mitch White on the mound and they still hold a game lead over Tampa for the top Wild Card spot. The Rays will send Jeffrey Springs, who has had an excellent month of September so far, to the mound. 

The middle of the AL East is getting sorted out down the stretch and tonight could go a long way to deciding the top Wild Card spot.  

Blue Jays vs. Rays Odds, Run Line and Total

Blue Jays vs. Rays Prediction and Pick

Springs has made four starts already this month and while he doesn’t go deep into games, he is very effective in the innings he does pitch. The Rays have won all four of those games and Springs has a 2.45 ERA on the season now. He has pitched 121.1 innings in his 30 games pitched, eight of those appearances came from the bullpen. Tampa was wise to convert him into a starter. 

On the other side, the Blue Jays have been trying to convert Mitch White into a reliever. His last appearance came in a middle relief, innings eating, role. It’s not that they have a surplus of starting pitching, he has just been that bad since coming over from the Dodgers. He is 1-6 on the year and has a 5.05 ERA. A 3.81 fielding independent pitching signals that he could see some positive regression, but with nearly 100 innings pitched on the year I would have expected that to come already. 

White has a few signs that are promising like an above average expected slugging and a sub-elite hard hit rate, but the results are there and even with improvement he wouldn’t be as good as Springs. The Rays have covered the run line in his four starts this month so let’s ride that train tonight. 

Pick: Rays -1.5 (+152)

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