The Yankees and Dodgers have been obliterating right-handed pitching this season.
The Yankees’ 130 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) mark against righties is 12 points higher than MLB’s second-best lineup, the Dodgers, at 118.
Can either right-handed starting pitcher keep the batters at bay Friday?
Cody Poteet has flashed potential through his first two starts in pinstripes, holding the Giants and Guardians to three combined runs over 11 innings.
But he hasn’t flashed top-notch stuff (88 Stuff+ and 12 whiffs across his first two starts), relying on a nibbling, sinker-heavy approach.
And that’s a problem because his sinker doesn’t force ground balls (36 percent), and the Dodgers rank second among MLB lineups in expected weighted on-base average (wOBA) against the pitch (.384).
And though Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s splitter and curveball have been nearly unhittable in his first MLB season, his fastball is the opposite (80 Stuff+), often leading to hard-hit balls (45 percent), barrels (9 percent) and home runs (10 percent HR/FB).
You can’t show any vulnerability against the Yankees, given Aaron Judge (30 percent) and Juan Soto (20 percent) rank first and second among qualified hitters in barrel rate, leading an impossible-to-stop offense.
The Yankees also have a top-10 lineup in weighted fastball, splitter and curveball runs created, so they’ll counter Yamamoto’s arsenal.
The forecast calls for winds directly out to center field, so BallParkPal’s model projects a +13 percent home run factor for the game.
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That could bite Yamamoto on fastballs to this powerful Yankees lineup.
The two bullpens are wildly overvalued by the expected metrics, so expect runs across all nine frames Friday.
The play: Dodgers-Yankees Over 9 runs (-110, FanDuel)