San Diego Padres starting pitcher Matt Waldron. Denis Poroy-USA TODAY Sports

Look of the Day 6/24: Great matchup for Padres' Waldron

By Jack Dougherty | Last updated 6/24/24

What a run it's been in our Look of the Day series, as we went 5-0 last week to improve to 8-0 in our last eight picks. Eight in a row, baby! This run will end at some point, but let's stay hot with our first selection for the new week.

Look of the Day: Washington Nationals @ San Diego Padres — Padres most hits (-130 FanDuel)

9:40 p.m. ET

One of the biggest pitching mismatches on Monday's MLB slate is going down in San Diego with Patrick Corbin matching up against Matt Waldron.

Let's start with Corbin. The Nationals left-hander ranks dead last in MLB among qualified pitchers in expected ERA (6.66) and expected batting average (.322). He's surrendered at least six hits in 11 of his 15 starts this season. In 84 combined at-bats against Corbin, current Padres hitters are batting .351 with a .389 wOBA and a .466 expected slugging percentage.

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Now over to Waldron, who's been fantastic for more than two months. The right-hander has given up only 13 hits in his last 26.1 innings of work, and the secret has been his nasty knuckleball. Waldron is throwing his knuckleball more than 38 percent of the time this year, and opposing hitters are batting just .200 with a .283 slugging percentage against it. Thanks to the increased use of his knuckler, Waldron has a 39.1 percent ground-ball rate and only a 32.1 percent hard-hit rate.

This is a great matchup for Waldron because the Nationals have the fourth-highest ground-ball rate and the third-lowest hard-hit rate in MLB. The Nationals are one of the worst lineups in the league at generating solid contact, and this is the first team most of these hitters will be seeing Waldron's knuckleball.

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