Another Monday of underwhelming pitching matchups in the middle of June, with an abbreviated MLB slate, has my eyes set on just one game this evening between two of the most underwhelming offenses. Below are my top MLB No Runs First Inning (NRFI) picks for Monday.
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Monday’s Best MLB No Runs First Inning (NRFI) Picks
(Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook)
New York Mets @ Cincinnati Reds
Starting Pitchers: Tobias Myers vs. Chase Burns
Chase Burns gets the rock for the Reds tonight, looking to build on his incredible start to the season. Burns has some of the most electric stuff in baseball, with an overall pitching run value, fastball run value and breaking ball run value that all grade above the 90th percentile.
Burns’ xERA of 2.94 and xBA of 0.203 are both stellar, each ranking in the mid-80th percentile. His swing and miss stuff also has him among the best in the game, placing among the top quartile of pitchers in terms of chase rate. Burns also ranks above the 90th percentile in both strikeout rate and whiff rate.
Burns has an A+ matchup against a Mets offense that has been pretty horrendous this season. The Mets rank second-worst in the league in batting average, slugging rate and OPS. They also have the league's worst on-base percentage (OBP). Burns should steamroll through their lineup all night long.
The Mets will start Tobias Myers, who will be making just his third start of the season in the opener capacity. Myers currently has the best WHIP of his career (1.08), largely due to his incredibly low 92nd-percentile walk rate (5.2%).
Myers’ fastball run value grades out in the 85th percentile, and his 3.41 xERA grades out in the 72nd percentile, indicating he's actually been a little unlucky this season. More importantly, Myers has an excellent matchup against one of the worst offenses in baseball.
The Reds rank in the bottom half of the league in slugging rate, in the bottom ten in OPS, in the bottom six in OBP and they have the third-worst batting average in the league.
I don't typically love the NRFI side in Great American Ball Park, but we've got a decent pitching matchup between two of the most underperforming offenses in the league. I'll take them both to have a clean first inning.
Pick: NRFI (-145)
