Two underwhelming teams finish a three game series on Wednesday afternoon.
The Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago White Sox have split the first two games in this series, and now will each lean on a pair of offseason acquisitions with the Phillies starting Taijuan Walker and White Sox starting Mike Clevinger on Wednesday afternoon.
Both teams are under .500 and are floundering below lofty expectations, but who can close out a series win on Wednesday?
Here are the odds:
Phillies vs. White Sox odds, run line and total
Phillies vs. White Sox prediction and pick
Clevinger has been outperforming expectations in the early part of the season with the White Sox. After struggling to stay healthy the past two years, Clevinger has posted a 2.20 ERA through three starts despite walking nearly as many batters that he is striking out (10 walks to 14 strikeouts). Maybe that indicates some regression is coming, but I don't trust the Phillies offense to challenge his control with the teams bottom 10 walk rate.
The same can be said for Walker, who has the same exact strikeout to walk ratio as Clevinger, but may not run into issues against a White Sox lineup that walks less frequently than the Phillies do, 29th in the bigs this season.
However, Walker is allowing far harder contact and teams are cashing in against him, he has allowed seven earned runs in 15 innings of work as he contrinues to struggle to find swings and misses.
The Phillies offense has the edge, but I can't trust Walker to avoid issues to be road favorites in this matchup. Clevinger has impressed me thus far and I'll take the home team as small underdogs.
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.