Padres vs. Giants prediction and odds for Thursday, June 22 (Back San Francisco to stay hot)
The hottest team in baseball, the San Francisco Giants, look to stay hot at the expense of its floundering division foe in the San Diego Padres.
It's a battle of lefties on Thursday with the Giants set to start Alex Wood while the Padres counter with Blake Snell, who is on the best stretch of his entire San Diego tenure. Can San Fran continue its heater and push closer to the top of the National League West?
Here are the odds for Thursday:
Padres vs. Giants odds, run line and total
Padres vs. Giants prediction and pick
Snell is in great form at the moment, allowing only two earned runs across his last five starts across 30 innings. However, he is still walking a ton of batters, 13 in that time frame and his xERA is still more than a run above his ERA (3.48 vs. 4.56).
He faces a San Francisco lineup that is sixth in the best leagues against left handing pitching and sweltering at the plate, fourth in OPS since the start of June.
The Giants will hope that Wood can string together a strong start against a Padres lineup that has fallen way short of expectations this season to date and is below the league average against southpaws. Wood struggles with walking batters, more than four per nine innings, but the Padres inability to string together hits is going to cost them on Thursday.
Wood must be careful against a San Diego team that has the highest walk rate in the league, but that is coupled with the fifth lowest batting average. With the way the Giants have been swinging the bat, I have to trust them at home in a near-coin flip game.
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.