Padres vs. Phillies Prediction and Odds for Thursday, May 19 (Phillies are the Worst Second Place Team in MLB)

Two-second place teams heading in different directions face-off on Thursday when the Philadelphia Phillies host the San Diego Padres. The Phils got shut out in Game 1, and will look to avoid losing this series outright this afternoon at home. 

I mentioned that these two teams are both in second place in their respective divisions, but they couldn't be any more dissimilar. For starters, the Padres have a winning record and the Phillies don’t. It’s not even close as the Padres entered this series at 22-13 while the Phillies were 17-18.

Here are the odds for this game, courtesy of WynnBET Sportsbook. 

Padres vs. Phillies Odds, Run Line, and Total

Run Line

• Padres +1.5 (-185)
• Phillies -1.5 (+152)

Moneyline:

• Padres +105
• Phillies -115

Total:

• 8 (OVER +100 | UNDER -120)

Padres vs. Phillies Prediction and Pick

The Phillies live or die by their offense. Philly’s offense has the potential to be amazing. But they are also wildly inconsistent and are a hard lineup to trust. Especially against a guy like Yu Darvish. I realize Darvish isn’t the guy he once was, and even then he was a little bit of a letdown. But he knows how to navigate games and is putting together a decent year overall.

His ERA is sketchy at 4.62, but his 1.18 WHIP inspires hope in me. His ERA is a little inflated still due to a total disaster in his second start where he gave up nine runs in less than two innings. But, over his last five games, the Padres are 5-0 and Darvish has only one bad game. Darvish still strikes out a ton of batters and doesn’t issue a lot of free passes. This is what I like to see when siding with a pitcher. 

Kyle Gibson will try to outduel Darvis today making his eighth start of the year for Philly. While Gibson’s 4.10 ERA and 1.21 WHIP are similar to Darvish’s numbers, I don’t feel much trust in Gibson. For one thing, he got lit up for six runs in 3 ⅔ innings on Friday against the Dodgers. He struck out just one batter in that game. This leads to my second issue with Gibson. His strikeout to walk rate needs some work. Over the last three games, Gibson has struck out seven while walking six. The  Phillies are 3-0 in those three starts, but it’s not because of Gibson. 

Pick: Padres ML

Follow all of Matt De Saro’s betting picks HERE