Kyle Schwarber

Find year-round coverage of betting news and insights for all sports by visiting our Betting section and subscribing to push notifications.We put together another 2-1 card Wednesday night, losing on the hook with Taj Bradley after the Rays pulled him with a pitch count of 83.As disappointing as that defeat was, we'll take the profit and move on to a small but fruitful Thursday slate.Let's dive into a few of my favorite plays on the board.Mets (+120) @ Phillies (-140)I expect plenty of offense in this game. And with Jose Quintana and Taijuan Walker on the mound, the fireworks should begin early.Quintana sports a 5.44 ERA this year, and he's given up at least four earned runs in three of his past four starts. His .380 xwOBA in that span indicates he deserves his poor results.The Phillies own an impressive .270 batting average versus lefties this season, and only the Diamondbacks have a higher OBP against southpaws than them. Led by Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Alec Bohm, Philadelphia will cause Quintana a world of problems.But the Mets have reason to believe they can keep up offensively. Walker conceded nine runs over his first two starts of the season before holding a lowly Marlins team to just one run on eight hits. That most recent performance is likely to be an exception rather than the norm.New York sits sixth in xwOBA versus righties in May. The club's more than capable of doing damage against a back-of-rotation starter like Walker.Look for both teams to score early and often in a high-scoring game.Bet: F5 Over 4.5 runs (-115)Cristian Javier: Over 3.5 hits allowedJavier's made five starts this season, conceding at least four hits in all but one of those outings. His struggles suppressing hits are nothing new.Dating back to last year, Javier's allowed four hits or more in 22 of his past 30 starts. That's a 73% clip.Things aren't about to get any easier for him against the Athletics. Although its record isn't impressive, Oakland's offense has been for quite some time - especially against right-handed pitchers.The A's rank fourth in xwOBA and top 10 in batting average versus righties in May.Seven of the past eight right-handed starters the Athletics faced conceded four-plus hits. The exception came against Bryan Woo, who, at this point, is much more reliable than Javier.Odds: -135 (playable to -145)Justin Steele: Over 4.5 hits allowedSteele's made three starts this campaign. Although he's only thrown a season-high 74 pitches in a contest, his pitch count has slowly increased each time out. That trend should continue as the Cubs get Steele up to full speed.I expect 80-plus pitches to be in the cards Thursday night. That number's been somewhat of a sweet spot for Steele.The 28-year-old has given up at least five hits in 13 of his past 15 starts when throwing 80 pitches or more. But he's allowed six hits in 12 of those contests, so he's often clearing the number with some room to spare.The Pirates aren't a good offensive team, and it'd be ignorant to suggest otherwise. Still, they piled up six hits against Steele in four innings last time out.With an increased pitch count for Steele and more Pirates at-bats, five hits doesn't seem like a lot to ask.Odds: -132 (playable to -150)Todd Cordell is a sports betting writer at theScore. You can follow him on X at @ToddCordell.Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

On Sunday night, Major League Baseball unleashed a new avalanche of data on the baseball world.Having long since tracked and quantified numerous characteristics of ball flight, both as pitches and hits, MLB turned its Statcast system toward the movement of the bat itself. Baseball Savant now publishes eight new measurements, such as "bat speed," "swing length," and "blasts."But will the new data challenge existing beliefs or mostly march in lockstep with them? We explored some initial insights to understand just what this new content drop means for those who play, analyze, and enjoy the game.Bat speed is (almost) kingOne takeaway is much of the data lines up well with the scouting eye. Baseball is a game of physics. Power is the result of the mass of the bat times acceleration. Acceleration of the bat is important. We've known that since the days of Babe Ruth. Ted Williams also trumpeted the need for bat speed. Now fans have a way to know who has the fastest bat and how that impacts their production.Through play Sunday, hitters with an average bat speed one standard deviation (4.5 mph) or better from the MLB median of 71.3 mph averaged a wOBA of .321, which is 10 points higher than the MLB average.Hitters one standard deviation or more below the median swing speed had a wOBA of .260. Tim Warner / Getty ImagesGiancarlo Stanton, Oneil Cruz, Kyle Schwarber, Matt Chapman, Ronald Acu a Jr., Christopher Morel, and Aaron Judge are the only hitters with average swing speeds of 76.5 mph and above - two standard deviations better than the average.(To determine bat speed, MLB removes bunts and the slowest 10% of a hitter's swings for the calculation.)The list has some past MVPs (Acu a, Judge, Stanton), possible breakout hitters (Morel, Cruz), and, bafflingly, Chapman. Bettmann / Getty ImagesGood teams swing fastSome of the best-hitting teams have the quickest bats. The Atlanta Braves rank first in team bat speed; the Baltimore Orioles are third.Some of the worst have the slowest. The Chicago White Sox and Toronto Blue Jays rank 29th and 30th, respectively.The Pittsburgh Pirates represent a confounding outlier. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r

Schwarber (back) will start at designated hitter and bat leadoff in Tuesday's game against the Mets.

Schwarber (back) will be in the lineup for Tuesday's game against the Mets, Corey Seidman of NBC Sports Philadelphia reports.

The Phillies don't seem especially concerned about the injuries to J.T. Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber, though Realmuto's in particular highlights the lack of depth behind him.