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8 Matchups: 5 For Opening Day, 3 for NBA Day 157…

Major League Baseball throws its first pitch this afternoon at 4:15, and the NBA tips off day 157 in their schedule at 7 PM tonight. This newsletter will focus on baseball, but we sprinkled in some NBA at the end, too. We’re going to focus on head-to-head matchups in both leagues. Our focus in the NBA fell to Jarrett Allen, DeMar DeRozan, and Fred VanVleet.

MLB

In baseball, we highlight data for two pitchers, Paul Skenes and Michael King, and for three batters, Adley Rutschman, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Gabriel Moreno. Let’s start with the hitters.

Adley Rutschman vs Berrios

Jose Berrios gets the nod for the Blue Jays, and Adley Rutschman has to be jumping for joy. In 24 plate appearances against Berrios, he has a .591 batting average with 3 home runs and 2 doubles.

And Berrios, who throws his offspeed and breaking ball a combined 44.6% of the time, has had it crushed twice early in the season by Rutschman.

Gabriel Moreno vs Steele

If Rutschman is jumping for joy at the idea of playing Berrios, Moreno is jumping through the stratosphere at the idea of facing Justin Steele. In 8 plate appearances against Steele, he has an .875 batting average and has a hit in 7 straight plate appearances against Steele.

Moreno also hit .302 against lefties last season, compared to .266 overall.

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. vs Eflin

Guerrero Jr is headed into a contract year, and starts his season off with a great matchup. In 16 plate appearances, he has 7 hits, including a double and 2 home runs, equaling a .438 batting average.

Opposing batters had a .254 batting average against Eflin last season, and opposing righties had a .281 average, so this matchup is a position of advantage for Guerrero Jr.

Paul Skenes vs the Marlins, K’s

4 players in the Marlins lineup have 3 or more plate appearances against Skenes, and three of them have a strikeout rate of 50% or higher against Skenes.

And then there’s the Marlins lineup against right-handed pitchers. Five players have strikeout rates of 29% or higher against righties last season, and 3 of those were above 33%.

Michael King, K’s

Michael King had a monster 12-strikeout game against Atlanta in October, and although the Braves’ lineup is different 6 months later, 5 of the players in Atlanta’s lineup have a K rate above 25% against King, with three of those 50% or higher.

Also in that lineup is Chadwick Tromp, who struck out 31.5% of the time against right handed pitchers last season.

NBA

Our focus in the NBA is on Jarrett Allen, DeMar DeRozan, and Fred VanVleet, who all have great historical data against the teams they’re playing tonight.

Jarrett Allen, 14.5 Points

No Victor Wembayama + Allen’s history against San Antonio + the Spurs rankings against centers makes for the perfect recipe for Allen today. He has absolutely crushed the Spurs in their last 6 matchups, including the two last year where he combined for 55 points in two games.

His recent play is encouraging, too. Allen, who has only averaged 13.9 points per game at home this season, has had monster back-to-back games at home, scoring 43 combined points against Brooklyn and Orlando.

The Spurs also allow the 2nd most points per game to centers.

DeMar DeRozan, 21.5 Points

Dating back to 2021, DeMar has gone over this number in 6 of his last 7 games against the Trail Blazers, including two games this season.

DeMar has also been playing strong lately, going over this number in 7 of his last 10 games. Admittedly, he’s been under in back-to-back games, but shot 27% in his last game, and could be due to bounce back against a team he clearly likes to play.

Fred VanVleet, 14.5 Points

Which version of Fred do we see tonight? The FVV that has averaged under 15 points per game this season, or the one that has crushed the Utah Jazz in his career.

He’s gone over this number in 8 straight games against Utah, and all three games last season he scored 22 or more, with a whopping 48 point game in April of last season. There’s also this season, where the Jazz give up a ton of points per game to point guards.

They rank 4th worst in point guard defense, allowing 25.2 points per game to the position. Hopefully, some of this matchup data will help you in your research today!

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See you Tuesday!