Toronto Blue Jays (44-41) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (52-36)
July 10, 2021 1:10 pm EDT
The Line: Tampa Bay Rays -120 / Toronto Blue Jays +110; Over/Under: 8.5
(Get latest betting odds)
The Toronto Blue Jays and the Tampa Bay Rays meet in an AL East division matchup in MLB action from Tropicana Field on Saturday afternoon.
The Toronto Blue Jays will attempt to rebound from a 7-1 loss at the hands of Tampa Bay last time out. George Springer accounted for Toronto’s lone RBI in the loss while Bo Bichette had a double and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Teoscar Hernandez and Randal Grichuk each had base hits as well as the Jays had just five hits as a team in the losing effort. Alek Manoah took the loss, falling to 2-1 after allowing two earned runs on three hits while striking out nine over 3.2 innings of work. Ross Stripling will start here and is 3-4 with a 4.06 ERA and 73 strikeouts this season. This will be Stripling’s second career start against the Rays.
The Tampa Bay Rays will attempt to build on their win over Toronto from Friday. Ji-Man Choi had three RBIs while Austin Meadows and Taylor Walls each had two RBIs to make up all of Tampa Bay’s scoring as a team in the win with Walls adding a pair of doubles. Brett Phillips went 2 for 4 with a double as well while Joey Wendle and Mike Zunino each added base hits to finish off the offense for the Rays in the victory. Shane McClanahan allowed one run on four hits with five strikeouts over four innings of work, but it was Andrew Kittredge who got the win in relief to improve to 6-1 on the year. Ryan Yarbrough will start here and is 5-3 with a 4.34 ERA and 75 strikeouts this season. In his career, Yarbrough is 7-1 with a 2.38 ERA and 49 strikeouts against Toronto.
Toronto is 10-3 in their last 13 game two matchups and 8-3 in their last 11 division games while the under is 67-32-8 in their last 107 Saturday games. Tampa Bay is 4-0 in their last 4 games overall and 18-6 in their last 24 Saturday games while the over is 5-1 in their last 6 games as a favorite. Toronto is 20-41 in the last 61 meetings between these two teams.
Realistically, this is not a pitching matchup I’m overly fond of, as Stripling’s been up and down this season and you never really know what you’re going to get when it comes to Ryan Yarbrough. Instead, I’m going to side with the over as I think both of these starters will be prone to giving up their fair share of runs and I think that both offenses do their part instead of Friday’s result that was one-sided. Give me the over here.
