Graded: Pick No. 15. Peralta went 6 shutout innings on the road and Detroit got 2 hits
The call, committed before first pitch: Tigers win. Confidence Low.
The result: Rays 3, Tigers 0. gamePk 824234, Final on the id.
Record: 8-7.
The argument was a home run split and nobody hit a home run
The whole pick was Peralta's road numbers. 15 home runs away, 7 at home, 6.79 against 4.09, and Wednesday was a road start. That was the bet.
Peralta threw 6 innings, gave up 2 hits, walked nobody, struck out 4 and allowed no runs on 81 pitches. Not one ball left the yard all afternoon, by either club. The trait I was betting on never showed up, which is what a split of 15 to 7 across 135 innings actually means: it is a tendency across a season, not a property of a start.
| What the pick leaned on | Wednesday |
|---|---|
| Peralta, 2.17 home runs per 9 on the road | 0 home runs, 6 IP |
| Peralta, 6.79 road ERA | 0 earned runs |
| Melton, 1.60 and no start over 2 earned since July 8 | 7 IP, 3 earned |
| Detroit 10-4 in Melton starts | 10-5 now |
Melton was the closest thing to what the entry described. 7 innings, 84 pitches, 7 hits, no walks, 3 runs. That is a worse line than his season and it is still a line most clubs win behind. Detroit did not score, so it did not matter.
2 hits, no walks, 9 innings
Brett Callahan singled and Dillon Dingler singled. That was the offense. No walks, 3 men left on base, 0 runs.
The full game had zero walks in it, both clubs, 18 half innings. Tampa Bay put 8 hits on the board and scored 3 of them, 2 in the 2nd and 1 in the 6th, on run-scoring singles from Liam Hicks, Jonny DeLuca and Cedric Mullins.
The part I wrote down and then underweighted
From the pick entry, in the section on what scares me: "A rotation edge does not matter if the lineup keeps putting up 1 run, which is what it did Monday."
That sentence was right and I made the pick anyway. Here is the number that should have carried more weight than it did.
Riley Greene went on the 10-day injured list on August 12 with a right hamstring strain, joining Kerry Carpenter (July 27) and Matt Vierling (July 31). Split Detroit's August on that date:
| G | Record | Runs scored | Per game | Runs allowed | Per game | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 1 through Aug 11 | 9 | 7-2 | 59 | 6.6 | 20 | 2.2 |
| Aug 12 through Aug 26 | 14 | 3-11 | 47 | 3.4 | 66 | 4.7 |
Same month, roughly half the offense. The honest caveat is in the last 2 columns: the pitching fell apart on the same date, from 2.2 runs a game to 4.7, and a hamstring does not explain that. 14 games is a small sample and both halves of this are partly noise.
What is not noise is the direction. A club scoring 3.4 a game is not a club you take on a starting pitcher argument, and I took it on a starting pitcher argument twice this week.
Detroit is 62-71. They are off Thursday and the Dodgers come in Friday night.
Not betting advice.
Got a Detroit number you want looked at? Email projectunmuted@proton.me and it gets looked at properly. A stat somebody quoted that smells wrong, a thing you have always assumed about one of these 4 teams and have never seen checked. Every question that arrives is listed with its answer, including the ones where the answer is no.