Frank Lorenzo
Pittsburgh Pirates (-153) at Cincinnati Reds (+143, 7.5 o/u)
The Pittsburgh Pirates (60-42, 25-25 Away) must already be chalking up tonight’s game against the Cincinnati Reds (46-54, 26-23 Home) as a win, and how can anybody blame them? They’ll have MLB’s leader in wins, Gerrit Cole (14-4, ERA 2.24), hitting the mound at tonight the Great American Ball Park (7:10 PM Eastern).
Cole leads the Major League Baseball with 14 wins in his 20 starts: he’s 3-1 in his last four outings, losing to the Kansas City Royals in that stretch. In his last outing, he went 7.2 innings allowing seven hits, and one run while striking out eight as the Pirates beat the Washington Nationals 3-1. But Cole has admitted he has been helped by his team, and that’s a huge reason for his success this season.
“It’s been a collective effort to get the wins where they are,” Cole told the Associated Press after last Sunday’s win.
The Reds will send right-hander Raisel Iglesias (1-3, 5.53 ERA) to face Cole. Iglesias is 0-3 in his last five starts, including a 4-1 loss against the St. Louis Cardinals, where he threw 6.0 innings, allowing six hits and four runs. He looked good until a fourth-inning grand slam by Kolten Wong.
“He made the adjustments really fast,” Iglesias said after allowing the grand slam. “So I have to come back with something hard in the middle, and you saw the consequence.”
The Reds have given the Pirates trouble this season, taking eight of their 11 matchups this season. But a beefed up Pittsburgh team is ready to make a run after bringing in the likes of: Joakim Soria, Michael Morse, J.A. Happ and Aramis Ramirez this deadline.
Gerrit Cole will earn his 15th win of the season taking advantage of an Iglesias’ pitching game that has been up and down all season.
Pick: Pirates (-153).
By Keith Allison on Flickr (Originally posted to Flickr as “Andrew McCutchen”) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
