The Yankees played host to the Orioles on Tuesday night to kick off a 3-game set between AL East foes, and the Yankees picked up a 10th-inning win to begin the series. The Orioles blew a 4 – 0 and 5 – 4 lead which was capped off by an Aaron Judge bomb in the 9th inning to send the game to extras.
The Yankees are once again listed as the chalk for Game 2 of the series on Wednesday night in the Boogie Down, but a favorable pitching matchup has Ej’s eyes on a pair of plays regarding the totals. Let’s take it to the diamond and see what bets we can expect to make on Hump Day in the Big Apple!
Orioles vs Yankees: Game and Betting Info
Baltimore Orioles @ NY Yankees ~ Wednesday, May 24, 7:05 p.m.
Yankees ML -140 ; Orioles ML +125
Game Total Over/Under 8.5
Probable Starting Pitchers: Tyler Wells (3 – 1 2.94 ERA) vs Nestor Cortes Jr. (4 – 2 5.21 ERA)
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Gerrit Cole started Tuesday’s game to begin the series in the Boogie Down, and the Orioles jumped on him right out of the gate. Cole retired the first two batters of the game and then a pair of walks led to an Adam Frazier double that knocked them both home giving the O’s an early 2 – 0 lead.
In the top of the second inning, Cole recorded his 2,000th career strikeout and he became the 87th player in MLB history to accomplish the feat.
2K-Cole 🔥 pic.twitter.com/u1hK7KSZyf
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) May 23, 2023
While that is all well and good, the Baltimore Orioles increased the lead to 3 – 0 when Cole watched a ball fly out to right-center field. Leadoff batter Cedric Mullins started the 3rd inning with a homer, and Gunnar Henderson bashed a ball out of the park in the 4th inning to give the O’s a 4 – 0 lead.
Cole has now allowed 6 HR over his last 4 starts but that is not the only problem Cole had to deal with. As I said in my article posted right here at GTS for the Tuesday game, Cole doesn’t get a lick of run support to aid his cause and the Yankee bats were ice-cold on Tuesday night. The Yankees were only able to manage 2 hits off of Kyle Bradish through the first 3 innings of the game, but Harrison Bader broke the ice with an opposite-field homer to begin the bottom of the 4th inning.
The Orioles didn’t respond in the top of the 5th inning but the Yankees bats finally started to build a rally. The Yankees once again got Cole off the hook for a loss by scoring 3 times in the 5th inning to level the score at 4 – 4.
Cole came out to start the 6th inning, but after giving up a pair of singles to start the frame, Aaron Boone brought out the hook and removed him from the game. The Yankee bullpen couldn’t get out of the inning unscathed, and Cole was back on the hook for the loss when the Orioles took a 5 – 4 lead on a bases-loaded grounder to first. Ron Marinaccio got out of another bases-loaded jam, and that closed the book on Cole’s day which ended up ugly. With 5 ER, 2 HR allowed, and 3 walks, the Yankees ace looked like anything but that on Tuesday night in the Bronx.
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Enter Aaron Judge! The Yankees Captain slammed a bottom-of-the-9th bomb to tie the game at 5 – 5, and the fans got treated to some extra baseball on Tuesday night.
The Orioles went on to lose the game, and that puts me down 2U to start my daily Yankee prediction articles here at GTS. If you didn’t start looking at the lines until after lunchtime, you indeed caught a +150 offer as that line moved in my favor as I expected it would, but Harrison Bader drove in the game-winning run with a 1st and 3rd sacrifice fly to give the pinstripes the win.
Also, as I said on Tuesday, the bottom of the Yankees’ batting order is complete junk and contributes NOTHING to the cause. The 6 – 9 hitters went 1 for 14 and the two pinch-hitters went 0 for 2 as well. IT’S JUNK! There are 3 bats in the Yankee lineup that everyone damn well knows they need to avoid. Judge, Rizzo, and Bader. Had it not been for those three dudes, Game 1 of this series with Baltimore would have been a complete blowout!
All right, let’s turn to tonight’s game now.
Nestor Cortes gets the nod for the stripes at home for Game 2 of this 3-game set at the Big House. Cortes’ season has been filled with ups and downs. If he fills the bases again tonight he could allow his third granny of the campaign! Already with two slams against him, Cortes’ ERA, as you see above, is over 5 and he has allowed 8 home runs through 9 starts this season.
I must admit he looked pretty dam good in his last start against the Blue Jays despite giving up another bomb in that outing. Cortes pitched 6 solid innings and only gave up 5 hits which led to 2 earned runs and a win over the Jays.
While Gerrit Cole seems to get no run support, Cortes gets plenty of it. The Yankees have scored 49 runs in games that Cortes has started but he’s given up 28 ER in response to those numbers, and as we know they didn’t score all of those runs while he was still in the game.
Regardless, trusting Cortes with my money right now is still a scary proposition, and the one lingering factor remains. The F**king Yankees lineup puts no fear in anyone because you know that Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo are going to be the ones who provide the sparks.
Tyler Wells gets the nod for the Orioles, and the weather is supposed to be absolutely gorgeous here in New York tomorrow. Wells has already given up 10 homers and he too has the propensity to get jacked up all too often. The damn Kansas City Royals smacked three out of the park against him, so imagine what a warm night in the Boogie Down is going to do to his ERA? I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto!
Orioles vs Yankees Best Bets for Wednesday
This total at 8.5 is going to crash as hard as a 125 MPH Maserati on the Autobahn! Even with the bottom of the Yankees’ batting order being a complete mess as it is, these two starting pitchers have done nowhere near enough to keep us off of this total.
Game Total Over 8.5 @ -105 (2U)
Secondary Bet: 1st 5-Innings Over 5 @ +120 (2U)
