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The Los Angeles Dodgers are sizable -160 favorites to get back in the win column tonight.

Nine of Seattle's last 10 losses have come by multiple runs, and my Mariners vs. Dodgers predictions and MLB picks expect that to be the case once again.

Who will win Mariners vs Dodgers tonight: Dodgers -1.5 (+120)

Emerson Hancock has several red flags masked by a 3.16 ERA. He ranks in the 40th percentile in xERA, the 21st in barrel rate, and the 16th in hard-hit rate.

That is not ideal heading into a matchup with the Los Angeles Dodgers, who lead the majors in OPS and rank second in hard-hit percentage against right-handed pitching.

Eric Lauer doesn’t exactly have a spotless profile, but the Seattle Marinersrank 25th in road OPS vs. left-handed pitching. It’ll be hard for them to keep up with a loaded Dodgers offense.

Bet this to +110.

COVERS INTEL:Emerson Hancock's struggles getting hitters to chase will make it difficult to avoid contact against a Dodgers offense loaded with power.

Mariners vs Dodgers Over/Under pick: Under 9.5 (-110)

This total is too high. Hancock has not pitched as well as his ERA suggests, but he's still done some good things. He has limited homers effectively, and he ranks in the 82nd percentile in walk rate.

Opponents will have to string together hits against him, and the Dodgers rank 21st with a .239 average vs. righties in July.

The Mariners rank 29th with a putrid .084 ISO when facing lefties this month. Their lack of power will make scoring runs in bulk a big challenge.

I see real value here, and would bet the Under to -125.

Mariners vs Dodgers weather

The forecast calls for temperatures in the mid-70s with winds blowing outward. Slight boost to bats.

Mariners vs Dodgers odds

• Moneyline: Mariners +135 | Dodgers -155
• Run line: Mariners +1.5 (-145) | Dodgers -1.5 (+125)
• Over/Under: Over 9.5 (-115) | Under 9.5 (-105)

Mariners vs Dodgers trend

The Dodgers have stayed Under the total in 29 of the last 50 home games for +6.15 units and a 11% ROI. Find more MLB betting trends for Mariners vs. Dodgers.

How to watch Mariners vs Dodgers and game info

Mariners vs Dodgers latest injuries

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Here’s the Guardians lineup:

Here’s the Reds lineup:

Let’s go, Guardians!

It’s getting late early for the 2026 Cincinnati Reds, who still sit at just 50-56 with less than a full week remaining before the August 3rd trade deadline. While the club is all but out of it and almost certain to be sellers any day now, they do deserve at least a bit of credit for not throwing up the white flag completely.

The Reds won each of their three road series as the season’s second half opened up, a 6-3 road trip that showed there’s still at least a bit of competent fight within them. They also split yesterday’s doubleheader against the Cleveland Guardians, setting the stage for a fourth straight series victory if they can just pull another rabbit out of a hat tonight in Great American Ball Park.

Brady Singer will take the ball in a Reds uniform, perhaps for the final time. The free agent to-be has pitched alarmingly well over the last two months and given that and the back of his baseball card he’s going to be a coveted piece by most every team needing pitching depth who’s in the hunt for a playoff spot.

[SPOILER ALERT: That’s every good team in baseball not named ‘Seattle Mariners]

Lefty Joey Cantillo will get the start for the Guardians, and manager Terry Francona has tweaked his lineup to attack the southpaw. JJ Bleday will start on the bench, for instance, as the Reds will field perhaps the most punchless outfield and bottom of the order ever recorded in human history instead.

First pitch is set for 7:10 PM ET. Here’s how both clubs will line up to start:

Every 12U baseball team has the same types of players. There’s the chunky first baseman who hits like Mark McGwire but has the speed and agility of a 70-year-old version of himself. There’s the coach’s son, who hits leadoff and plays shortstop, even though he just flat-out sucks. Then there’s the slap hitter: often undersized, blessed with excellent bat-to-ball skills, yet cursed with a swing that can hardly generate a cool breeze. These kids were always lightning fast and a nightmare for GameChanger parents everywhere, somehow going 4-for-4 with four infield singles, two of which were probably errors, but generously scored as hits anyway.

Players like this tend to dry up as they grow up. By junior year of high school, most of the talented ones add power as they grow into their bodies. As for the rest, they usually fade out of baseball in favor of a sport that more directly rewards their speed and athleticism.

By the time they reach college or pro ball, the few pure contact hitters who persist often see their swing changed into something more analytically viable. The highly paid stats nerds behind the modern front office are quick to erase .030 points of batting average in exchange for some more extra base hits. It’s just optimal baseball nowadays, and now that most teams have come to that same conclusion, many of them aim to trot out rosters that are strategic carbon copies of one another. 

Yet one player in MLB can still be called a true slap hitter, bucking nearly every trend of modern offensive efficiency while serving as the everyday outfielder for the American League’s top team: Tech alum Chandler Simpson.

Simpson had a brief yet productive stint on the Flats, slashing .433/.506/.517 with 25 RBIs and 27 stolen bases in his sole season. He was subsequently drafted with the 70th pick of the 2022 draft by the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Rays have always been unafraid to balk at league conformity, running what can only be described as a modern-day Moneyball scheme. Their greatest exploits have been on the mound, turning castaway arms into bona fide aces year in and year out. Their system valued Simpson higher than most, picking him some 50 spots ahead of where some outlets had him. So far, that bet has paid off, as Simpson sits on a .294 batting average with 70 stolen bases in his first 207 MLB games.

Yet these surface-level numbers don’t even begin to tell the story. In reality, Simpson is more of a crusader against modern three-true-outcome baseball. He doesn’t strike out much, with the third-fewest among qualified hitters. He also doesn’t take many free passes, with the 13th-fewest walks. The coup de grâce? Simpson is the only qualified hitter in the MLB not to hit a home run this season. Remarkably, Simpson has actually never hit a true over-the-fence home run in a post-high school baseball game.

Now, technically Simpson has three home runs. Personally, I don’t believe any count. In reverse order, there was one earlier this season, but that was in spring training, and any league where the likes of Will Ferrell and Russell Wilson see the field shouldn’t statistically count.  Then there was an inside-the-park home run when Simpson was playing for the Montgomery Biscuits, the Rays AA affiliate, but since that ball didn’t leave the park, that doesn’t count either. Finally, there was a game on the Flats against Gardner-Webb. Simpson pulled a ball down the right field line, which, if undisturbed, would’ve bounced off the top of the wall and landed in play, likely for a triple. Instead, the Gardner-Webb outfielder tries to catch the ball at the track and winds up volleyball-setting it over the wall. That, for obvious reasons, shouldn’t count either.

This playstyle produces a Baseball Savant page that is simply a thing of beauty. It looks like a min-maxed RPG build rather than an actual baseball player. He is either last or wrestling for last in nearly every imaginable offensive statistic, except those related to the mechanics of his swing or low K rate. Yet, it’s obvious that he isn’t the worst offensive player in the league, so what gives? Well, Baseball Savant just doesn’t have the metrics to convey the value of Simpson’s ultra-small-ball playstyle, because there is no other player like him.

In search of a contemporary, the closest thing you’ll find is Luis Arraez, another ultra-contact hitter. But Arraez isn’t very fast and has the upside for 5-10 home runs per season. Simpson trades this power upside for being, according to Baseball Savant, the best baserunner in MLB. While Simpson is quite good at swiping bags, his best value comes in taking extra bases: turning doubles into triples and scoring from first on shallow doubles. This alone has generated 6 extra runs this season, a league best.

In his rookie campaign, the biggest knock on Simpson was his defense, as he graded as one of the worst fielders in MLB. His issue was his range, marked as 11th percentile in outs above average, confounding for such an athletic player. He drastically improved within the next season, going from 11th to 95th percentile, a meteoric rise that shows his adaptability.

All of this goes to show why Chandler Simpson fascinates me. In a game that analytics gurus have deemed all but solved, Simpson shows there still are multiple ways to not only survive in the league, but thrive. To many players, Simpson’s results would be treated as a fault, an inefficient bug waiting to be squashed. To him, it’s a feature, and one that he’s using to become a top outfielder in MLB. There is simply no other player like him, and with how the sport is trending, I doubt there will be one for a very long time. But, who knows? Maybe there’s a 14-year-old somewhere watching Simpson that’ll ditch the Muscle Milk and squat racks in favor of peppering endless ground balls up the middle. Sure, it’s not glamorous, but it certainly gets the job done.

Atlanta Braves vs New York Mets series finale. Once again, the Braves are in a position where they’re trying to avoid a sweep. Can they do it and score the runs they need with Chris Sale on the mound?

First pitch is set for 7:10 p.m. E.T.

Lineups

Preview

After a blown save ruined game one of the series, the Royals head back onto the field to face the Twins again this evening. It is still fun to watch games, but the looming trade deadline is really the star of this week unless it continues to be near radio silence across the league. The injury train keeps rolling in KC as well, with Vinnie Pasquantino going back on the IL with wrist soreness.

Luckily for the Royals, they have their ace going tonight. Since joining Kansas City, Randy Dobnak has only given up 3 runs across four outings for a sparkling 1.42 ERA. He certainly won’t keep that up over the long-term, but hopefully he can keep it rolling for tonight. It will be frequent foe Joe Ryan going for Minnesota.

Go Rays!

Mets lineup

A.J. Ewing – LF
Francisco Lindor – SS
Bo Bichette – 3B
Luis Robert, Jr. – CF
Francisco Alvarez – DH
Jared Young – 1B
Carson Benge – RF
Marcus Semien – 2B
Luis Torrens – C

SP: Christian Scott – RHP

Braves lineup

Drake Baldwin – C
Ronald Acuña, Jr – DH
Matt Olson – 1B
Michael Harris – CF
Ozzie Albies – 2B
Mauricio Dubón – LF
Mike Yastrzemski – RF
Austin Riley – 3B
Jim Jarvis – SS

SP: Chris Sale – LHP

Broadcast info

First pitch: 7:10 PM EDT
TV: SNY
Radio: Audacy Mets Radio WHSQ 880AM, Audacy App, 92.3 HD2

The White Sox are bleeding, and tonight is triage. Chicago has dropped two straight and is just 4-6 over its last 10 games, yet somehow still clings to a faint 1 1/2-game lead over the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central. That cushion feels increasingly fragile as July has become one complication after another, easily the club’s toughest month of the season. Rate Field had been where the White Sox found a pulse for most of the year, but the Good Guys are just 4-7 at home this month, and the first two games of this series have only added to the frustration. Both were there for the taking, continuing a trend of missed opportunities during an offensive slump that has arrived at the worst possible time.

Unfortunately, there is little relief in sight as the schedule is not doing the South Siders any favors. After tonight and tomorrow against the Yankees, the White Sox head to Tampa Bay to face the American League’s top dogs before traveling to Boston, where the suddenly red-hot Red Sox already swept Chicago at Rate Field just before the All-Star break. Then comes a pivotal three-game home series with the Guardians. There are no soft landings on the schedule, meaning the Sox will have to play their way out of this funk against some of baseball’s best clubs.

The offense has cooled considerably after carrying the club for stretches earlier this summer. Chicago still ranks seventh in baseball in home runs on the season, but over the last 15 days the power has all but disappeared, falling to 27th over the stretch. The arms aren’t bailing anyone out, either. A season ERA that still ranks 11th in baseball at 4.14 has inflated to 4.36 over the past two weeks, good for just 19th in the league. When both the bats and the arms cool off simultaneously, forget about winning the nail-biters.

Davis Martin gets the ball tonight, hoping to stabilize the club. Martin was arguably Chicago’s first-half MVP on the mound, posting a microscopic 1.41 ERA in April and following it with a 2.05 mark in May before the regression monster showed up. June brought a 5.68 ERA, and July has been even rougher at 6.00. Even so, Martin enters tonight 9-5 with a 3.49 ERA and a respectable 1.27 WHIP after coming off a meh outing against Houston (four runs over five innings).

Martin’s path to success against New York is clear. He doesn’t overwhelm hitters with elite velocity, sitting around 94 mph with the fastball, but he succeeds by mixing six different pitches and avoiding hard contact. His changeup is filthy, grading in the 94th percentile in run value, while his sinker is no slouch either. If Martin can establish his sinker and changeup early, expand the zone with his slider and curveball, and limit loud contact, he has a good chance to neutralize a Yankees lineup built around power. The biggest key will be getting ahead in counts and avoiding the free passes.

Standing opposite Martin is one of baseball’s biggest breakout stars. Cam Schlittler has been sensational in 2026 and has firmly planted himself in the AL Cy Young conversation. The Yankees righthander is 10-6 with a league-leading 2.07 ERA and 0.93 WHIP while holding opponents to a .200 batting average. He was dominant again in his last start, blanking Philadelphia over 7 1/3 innings while allowing just three hits, striking out 12 without issuing a walk. Yikes.

Schlittler’s Savant page is a sea of red. The fastball is a monster — 99th percentile in run value, big velocity, nasty chase rates, a 94th-percentile strikeout rate and above-average command. The expected stats are just as scary. Trying to slug your way past him? Good luck. The Sox need to grind out at-bats, make him work, and pounce if he falls behind. His breaking stuff is hittable, but the heater is a nightmare. Chicago’s best bet is to avoid chasing, string together some singles and walks and maybe manufacture a run or two. The three-run bomb likely isn’t coming to the rescue tonight.

Tonight’s matchup is a study in opposites. Schlittler is the flamethrower, racking up whiffs with a killer four-seamer and video-game numbers. Martin is the craftsman, mixing six pitches, changing speeds, and living on soft contact. Schlittler’s game is all power; Martin’s is all guile. If Martin’s sharp, he can hang, but his leash is considerably shorter than the Yankees’ ace.

Offensively, the White Sox will lean on a pair of hitters who have been carrying the lineup since the All-Star break. Chase Meidroth continues to spray base hits all over the field, while Braden Montgomery appears to be breaking out after a slow stretch, giving the middle of the order some desperately needed life. On the flip side, Tristan Peters and Sam Antonacci are ice-cold and have endured a difficult two weeks at the plate, with Miguel Vargas also searching for his early-season mojo. If the Sox are going to knock off one of the AL’s hottest arms, they’ll likely need their hottest bats to get even hotter and for a few of those cold ones to join the party.

Here’s how skipper Will Venable sends them out against Schlittler:

And for the Yankees:

First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 p.m. CDT. The game will be televised on CHSN and can be heard on ESPN Chicago 1000.

Welp,

The Atlanta Braves won’t take the series win against the New York Mets, but they have a shot to avoid a sweep.

Let’s take a look at these lineups for the series finale.

Drake Baldwin will be leading off, which will place Ronald Acuña Jr. in the second batting slot. Some good news, Jim Jarvis and Mike Yastrzemski are in the lineup, and are looking to add some offensive power to the night. Maybe Matt Olson can knock in another bomb to add to it.

A lot of ifs, but the main thing that keeps setting the Braves back (besides a lackluster bullpen) is an inconsistent offense. Even worse, production that won’t show up at all, especially in a Chris Sale start.

Christian Scott is our opposing pitcher for the night, currently holding a 3.13 ERA. It’s an expected duel between the two on the mound. The Mets, though coming off a low-scoring win, are looking to finish off the way they started.

Both offenses, however, have shown signs of inconsistencies, then a flip to a sudden understanding of offensive effort. Which one will reach that understanding tonight?

Tune in at 7:10 p.m. ET to find out.

Texas Rangers @ Tampa Bay Rays

Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 5:40 PM CDT (105.3 The Fan / Rangers Sports Network)

Tropicana Field

LHP MacKenzie Gore vs. RHP Casey Legumina (followed by LHP Ian Seymour as the bulk pitcher)

Go Rangers!