Padres vs Angels Odds & Prediction
| San Diego Padres Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
-155 | 8 -115o / -105u | -1.5 +100 |
| Los Angeles Angels Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Moneyline | Over/Under | Run Line |
+130 | 8 -115o / -105u | +1.5 -120 |
The San Diego Padres are quickly turning their season around, winning five of the last seven games to vault into second place in the National League West. Now, they'll head to Anaheim to continue building on that run against a wounded Los Angeles Angels team that's dropped eight of nine and has struggled mightily to hit the ball.
L.A. will send veteran Tyler Anderson to the bump to be the stopper amidst a solid season, but with some troubling rates can we be sure he'll get the job done? Can he outpitch Padres knuckleballer Matt Waldron, who's managed to turn himself into an effective starter?
We'll answer these questions and get into the best way to bet Padres vs Angels in my MLB betting preview below, which includes a moneyline prediction.
San Diego Padres
The Padres have managed to overcome the Juan Soto-sized hole in their lineup to match their above-average offensive numbers from last season for the most part — this despite a down year for Manny Machado and an injury to Xander Bogaerts. They sit sixth in wRC+, lowing their strikeout rate by almost three points, but this offense certainly is a much different one than we've seen in the past years.
For starters, the Padres are walking less, and with more contact on a higher number of swings, they have put the ball in the air at a significantly lower rate. All of those numbers have skewed even more over the last two weeks, and it's important to point out that while San Diego isn't hitting with the same kind of launch angle it had a year ago, it has traded those fly balls in for line drives and has hit for a much higher average as a result — though overall power has almost completely dissipated.
That's going to make for an interesting matchup on Monday against a left-hander who has been roughly average in expected hits and has really struggled most with walks and suppressing power. The Padres are just 23rd in wRC+ against lefties with a measly .116 Isolated Power, but in this split, they've hit just .230 over the course of the season with a much higher number of ground balls and few line drives.
That brings me to their starter on Monday, who is transitioning into what is essentially a true knuckleball pitcher.
Waldron has used the pitch as his primary offering over the last three starts, allowing just three earned runs on 17 hits over 17 2/3 innings, with a handsome 25 strikeouts. He threw the pitch almost 56% of the time last go around — a career high — to put together his best outing of the year.
That did come against the Miami Marlins, however, so the jury's still out on how this strategy will go. Still, with a .209 xBA on the knuckler — with a near-30% whiff rate — it would seem to be a pitch that will be difficult to handle.
Los Angeles Angels
Anderson is a much-less exciting arm than Waldron given we've seen him pitch for eight seasons on many different teams. He seems to be the same man he's always been, at least for every season he's pitched around his 2022 All-Star campaign with the Dodgers, and that makes him a very competent back-end option for the Angels.
I hate to call anyone's results a fluke, but Andersons' 2.47 ERA does carry inherent issues. He's stranded a ridiculous 87% of the runners who have reached with a .211 BABIP, two numbers that are very far off his career averages of 72.4% an .284.
He's thrown to a .250 xBA, which puts him right around the league average, but he's got one of the worst defenses in the league behind him, which sits in the bottom five of Outs Above Average for the season and ranked dead last there in May, and he's also pitching in a very friendly park for home runs.
The good news, at least for this matchup, is that Anderson has been an extreme fly-ball pitcher for the last two seasons at roughly 10 points higher than the league average and, as we've covered, the Padres aren't very interested in hitting the ball in the air this year. They've managed to hit .254 in this split for the season with some better slugging, but it's hard to find a discernible edge given their numbers are roughly the same against ground-ball types.
Offensively, things have been a struggle for the Angels over the last two weeks with a poor 83 wRC+, brought on by a continued struggle to make contact and a poor walk rate. Their power numbers have actually remained quite reasonable with a .155 ISO, it's just that they're not populating the bases whatsoever with few walks and hits to speak of.
I'd also like to point out that they've come through some incredibly tough pitching against the Mariners, Yankees and Guardians in recent weeks — this series against the Padres probably represents their best chance at offense in some time.
Padres vs. Angels
Betting Pick & Prediction
The lone redeeming quality for the Angels has been their ability to drive the ball into the gaps and out of the park, and while it's been incredibly inconsistent in terms of getting results, their contact has consistently come in the air all season long. That's why, in a home park which grades out as one of the best for home runs over the last few seasons, they've been just a hair better than average in OPS, and have hit .245 along the way.
Waldron isn't producing many ground balls, and his knuckler certainly isn't with an average launch angle of 17 degrees despite some friendly returns in the exit velocity department. It's always hard to read into a team performing against a knuckleball given there are so few that have thrown one over the last five or so years, but I do think in their friendly home park they can find some success here — and I'm not as low on this lineup given the quality arms they've had to face of late.
On the other side of the coin, Anderson could be in a surprisingly good spot despite the fact that his numbers are screaming regression. Sure, his defense hasn't been fantastic, but the Padres have shown an inability to hit fly-ball pitchers and will be out of their comfort zone as a team that has opted for consistency with contact over power. The park shouldn't play up nearly as much for them.
I'm going to hold my nose here and go with the Angels. This line certainly points to the fact that L.A. has a much better chance than the public would be led to believe, and while they're both bad teams, I do think the Angels are a solid step up from the Marlins for Waldron.
