Giants vs. Twins prediction and odds for Monday, May 22 (San Fran will miss Joc's bats against Bailey Ober)

The San Francisco Giants are starting to make some noise out in the AL West with five wins in their last six games to get to 22-24. They are still six games back of first place, but are playing well heading into this three game series with the first place Minnesota Twins. The Twins are 25-22 and in first in the AL Central, but have lost three of four.

Game 1 of this interleague series will feature Bailey Ober making his sixth start of the season for the Twins against John Brebbia for the Giants. Ober is 3-0 with a 1.78 ERA while Brebbia is 2-0 in 21 appearances, two of them starts with a 4.26 ERA. Brebbia has not gone longer than 1.2 innings in any outing this year, so it will be a bullpen game for the Giants. 

Here are the odds for the Giants and Twins tonight.

Giants vs. Twins odds, run line and total

Giants vs. Twins prediction and pick

In May the San Francisco Giants have the third best ERA in baseball, 3.56, but that is still two slots behind the Twins and their 3.34 ERA. For the season though, the Giants are 28th in bullpen ERA at 5.22 and in the two bullpen games which Brebbia has started they have a 5-4 win and a 7-5 loss. They aren’t exactly playing in low-scoring games when they try to cover nine innings with relievers. 

The Twins however, are playing in low-scoring games every time that Bailey Ober takes the mound. Ober allowed three runs over six innings in one start this season against the Padres and that is by far his worst outing. Otherwise he hasn’t allowed more than one run in the other four starts. He has a 59th percentile strikeout rate and an 85th percentile chase rate with a 74th percentile walk rate, so he can continue to pitch well, but likely not at this level. 

Ober has a 3.63 expected ERA and a FIP of 3.00, both of which scream that some level or regression is coming. That may not mean a blowup start and it may not be in this start, but he will start to struggle a bit more sometime soon. Just probably not against San Fran. The Giants are 25th in OPS this month. 

For his career, Ober has allowed a .764 OPS to lefties and this season that is at .648 which is still much better than the .516 OPS he’s allowed to right-handed hitters. With Joc Pederson on the 10-day IL the Giants don’t have much left-handed pop in their lineup, so I’ll trust Ober to get through this outing clean. It’s scary to trust the Giants bullpen, but I think I have to take the under in this one because these are two top five pitching staffs this month.

Follow all Josh Yourish’s bets HERE

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change