MLB Opening Pitch: Ducey's expert picks, odds, preview for Sat. 6/29 (2024)

Welcome to Opening Pitch, our daily column that you'll find throughout the 2024 MLB season.

Yankees vs. Blue Jays

Saturday, June 29, 3:07 p.m. ET, SNET

Odds via FanDuel. Get up-to-the-minute MLBodds here.

Nestor Cortes (NYY) vs. Chris Bassitt (TOR)

This Chris Bassitt situation has gone on long enough, and I'm optimistic that his run of form will come to a merciful end on Saturday evening against the Yankees.

I'm not going to be a hypocrite here and say Bassitt's been dumbfoundingly "lucky" to pitch around a poor 4.23 Expected ERA this season to deliver a 3.45 ERA in 91 1/3 innings, because he does have the third-best defense by Outs Above Average behind him.

With that said, though, hasn't he been the least bit fortunate to go two months withoutone truly poor performance? It's not as if this man was any good last year, allowing 28 home runs in 200 innings to few strikeouts and a pedestrian 7.1% walk rate. He was able to skate by with a 3.60 ERA thanks in large part to his defense, but he did allow all those home runs and managed to limit hits, in general, with opponents batting just .235 against him.

Well, opponents are a handsome .259 against Bassitt this season, which is right in line with his .258 Expected Batting Average. He's also walked roughly 9% of the batters he's faced, with those issues becoming glaring this month, so when you put it all together you've got a guy who's populating the bases and does little to mitigate the risk without great strikeout ability.

The Yankees are one of the five best teams in baseball against ground-ball pitchers like Bassitt and should be the ones to put an end to this ridiculous story with their ability to take walks — doing so 13% of the time in the last two weeks — making them even more attractive.

Nestor Cortes, meanwhile, will be pitching to plenty of fly balls in a much friendlier park than Yankee Stadium and will encounter an offense ranked just 25th inwRC+ to left-handers. I like this matchup too much for the visitors to turn them down at this price regardless of who's pitching, however.

Bet: Yankees ML (-120 | Play to -130)

Astros vs. Mets

Saturday, June 29, 4:10 p.m. ET, WPIX

Odds via FanDuel. Get up-to-the-minute MLBodds here.

Framber Valdez (HOU) vs. Tylor Megill (NYM)

I'm expecting a ton of runs in this one, and it's not even due to the fact that both of these offenses are hot. I genuinely fear for both pitchers here.

Starting with Valdez, he's going to have to handle a Mets team that has raked against lefties this year to the tune of a 122 wRC+, good for fourth in the game, and their OPS in this split is almost 50 points higher than it is against right-handers. The Mets also may slug a bit more against fly-ball arms, which is normal, but they're sporting a clean .250 average versus ground-ballers to put them 11th in the league.

I'm already skeptical of the Ground Ball Man here with his numbers taking a turn for the worst in 2023 and only getting worse this season. Valdez experienced four-point spike in hard-hit balls last year to bring him to a poor 45.6% rate, and that number's gone up another three points this season to put him in the bottom 4% of the league. The strikeout rate has taken a 5.5-point dive as well and he continues to walk guys around the league average.

With a large complement of expected hits against Valdez this year, which comes along with more hard contact, I don't think he's doing nearly enough to survive out there, let alone pitch to his Cy Young-level, and this is the last team he'll want to see.

On the other side, I'm actually somewhat bullish on Tylor Megill, but even his biggest supporters would recognize that the bulk of his potential comes in the strikeout department. He's pushing towards elite territory with a 28.7% punchout rate, but he continues to struggle with walks and and frequent barrels and hard-hit balls.

The problem for Megill is that the Astros swing a tonand have struck out just 17.4% of the time over the last two weeks with a pretty solid .163 Isolated Power, all things considered. When the ball comes back in play, that's bad news for Megill, and the ball should come back in play a ton against this offense.

All roads here lead to the Over.

Bet: Over 8.5 (-104 | Play To 9 -105)

Cubs vs. Brewers

Saturday, June 29, 4:10 p.m. ET, MARQ

Odds via FanDuel. Get up-to-the-minute MLBodds here.

Justin Steele (CHC) vs. Tobias Myers (MIL)

I'm sad to admit it, but I can say with great certainty that I've watched Tobias Myers more than you, the reader. What I see is another Stuff+ clone who cannot pitch in the big leagues, and his brutal first month and change at this level was all the proof I needed to see.

Myers' four-seam fastball has been touted as an MLB-caliber one by the stuff metrics, but to this point it's produced a .244 xBA and high .484 xSLG despite the results being pretty solid. That's a really big deal because, if you haven't noticed over the last month, Myers' results have actually been quite good.

I'm not ready to anoint him after shutting down the Tigers, Angels and a struggling Blue Jays team. He was clobbered by the White Sox to end May, a month he began by getting knocked around by these same Cubs. The breaking stuff has been better in June, sure, but his fastball — a pitch he throws almost 50% of the time — still wears a poor xBA this month.

I think that opens the door for a Cubs team that has improved by leaps and bounds against fastballs in the last two weeks and is on the precipice of a breakthrough if they can just find a little power, considering they're still hitting a perfectly acceptable .241 over the past 14 days.

Myers should help them get there, and Justin Steele should help this team in a big way on the hill to boot. He continues to go about his business to little fanfare, owning a great 3.28 xERA backed by a low .232 xBA, and he gets a Brewers team on Saturday that is not only regressing fast, but ranks 20th in baseball against left-handed pitchers.

Bet: Cubs ML (+100 | Play to -112)