New York Mets vs. New York Yankees Betting Odds, and Picks for July 26, 2022.

Free baseball yesterday! I guess that’s a good thing, we went exactly even after the Reds crushed the Marlins and the Cubs barely squeaked out a win against our underdog pick of the Pirates.

We have a fun one today. I’m breaking my own rules of parlays and taking a look at the subway series. There is a trend I’m looking at for the total, as well as a money line pick on one of these teams.

All eyes will be on Mets vs. Yankees on TBS, so that’s the game I’ll be targeting as the rest of the slate looks rather grim.

2022 MLB Regular Season Record: 141-122 (53%) +20.44 units

New York Yankees vs. New York Mets: 7:10 PM EST

Jordan Montgomery (LHP, Yankees) [3-2, 3.24 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 108.1 IP, 88 K, 20 BB]

Taijuan Walker (RHP, Mets) [3-2, 3.24 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 91.2 IP, 73 K, 25 BB]

The first subway series of 2022 is here! This will be the first game of a two-game set and all of America will have their eyes on two of the best teams in baseball going at it on TBS. This should be an action-packed game as both teams had a day off to prepare for each other.

Let’s talk about some early line movement before we get into baseball talk. The Mets opened up as -115 favorites before dropping to +105 underdogs as more money has piled in on the Yankees. When we look at the total, the opposite happened. The total opened at 7.5 and has moved to 8 even though more money has piled in on the under.

I don’t believe Vegas gets a clean sweep in this one, and this should be one of the most watched games of the year. I wonder what type of baseballs they’ll use…

Let’s talk about the weather. The weather report in Queens looks beautiful. It’s supposed to be 82 degrees at first pitch but decently humid as it often is in New York. According to ballparkpal, we should have 10-14 MPH winds blowing out to right-center field which calls for a 16% increase in home runs but a -14% decrease in XBH. In total, that weather report calls for a slight increase in runs at +3%.

Jordan Montgomery has been solid all season for the Yankees. He doesn’t have problems pitching in different ballparks, and he’s one of those pitchers that you normally know what you’re going to get. A typical line for him is 5-6 innings while allowing two earned runs. That’s exactly what he’s averaged in August against the Red Sox, Guardians, and Astros.

Montgomery will face a Mets offense that hasn’t had much success against left-handed pitching this year. In the month of July they rank 20th in wRC+ with a .218/.301/.349 slashline with the 20th ranked ISO to go along with the 22nd ranked wOBA. Montgomery features most four pitches, a sinker, changeup, curveball, and four-seam fastball.

While the Mets have struggled against lefties, they’ve performed better at home. They rank 12th in July in wRC+ at home against southpaws and they can really hit a sinker. When we look at run value against certain pitches on baseball savant, most of the Mets hitters perform extremely well against that pitch mix.

Outside of Francisco Lindor, the first seven hitters in the Mets lineup crush sinkers. However, Francisco Lindor has performed the best against Montgomery in the past. He’s 5-9 with a home run and a double. Montgomery pitched against the Mets twice last season, and while it was a different lineup, the team should come in confident knowing they put up eight earned runs in 7.2 innings.

Taijuan Walker will get the ball for the Mets who is due for regression if we look at his advanced numbers. He’s had fantastic results thus far, but his 3.61 xERA, 2.98 FIP, and 3.71 xFIP tell us he won’t hold a 2.55 ERA for long. This will be one of his toughest tests of the season as he faces a Yankees lineup that demolishes right-handed pitching.

Since July began, the Yankees rank third in wRC+ with a .263/.353/.473 slash line with the third-best ISO and wOBA in the league. Walker has done an excellent job of keeping the ball in the park, but he may not be so lucky against a premier power offense with wind blowing out.

The Yankees are very familiar with Walker, as he’s racked up 130 PA against the Yankees’ current roster. It’s resulted in a .366 xwOBA, a .249 xBA, and a .492 xSLG with an average exit velocity of 90.6 MPH and an average launch angle of 14.1 degrees. The quality of contact against Walker is solid for the Yankees.

Walker has a 1.50 ERA at home, but it seems a bit flukey. He’s faced the Marlins twice, the Phillies (allowed two runs), the Cardinals (allowed three runs), but he shut out the Astros in his best start of the year.

The Yankees have the bullpen advantage, but the loss of Michael King will hurt. The Yankees have the second-best bullpen ERA in baseball while the Mets rank 10th. While the results have been solid, these two teams know each other’s bullpen arms, and both have been a bit shaky as of late against lesser offenses. This game will be close at the end, I can even see this going into extra innings where the over is more likely to hit.

With these different factors, I’ll be playing the over and the Yankees money line. The Mets will use Max Scherzer tomorrow against Domingo German, so they should win game two. I believe they’ll split this series, so I’m riding with the Yankees in this one.

On the flip side, the line movement combined with the weather makes me think this game will soar over eight runs, as did all five games in the subway series last year.

I’m choosing to parlay them for a little extra fun. This will be the only parlay you’ll see from me all season, but let’s ride.

Parlay New York Yankees ML (-125) & Over 8 Runs (-105) – (+250)

1 Unit to Win 2.5 Units