Tampa Bay Rays (54-37) vs. Atlanta Braves (44-46)
July 18, 2021 1:20 pm EDT
The Line: Atlanta Braves -105 / Tampa Bay Rays -105; Over/Under: 9
(Get latest betting odds)
The Tampa Bay Rays and the Atlanta Braves meet in MLB action from Truist Park on Sunday afternoon.
The Tampa Bay Rays will look to bounce back from a 9-0 loss at the hands of the Braves on Saturday. Yandy Diaz had two hits while Wander Franco and Ji-Man Choi each had a base hit as the Rays mustered up just four hits as a team in the loss with thre rest of the team batting 0 for 0 for 20 with 8 strikeouts. Josh Fleming took the loss, falling to 7-5 on the year after allowing seven runs on eight hits over 4.1 innings of work. Rich Hill will start here and is 6-4 with a 3.74 ERA and 87 strikeouts this season. This will be Hill’s first career start against the Braves.
The Atlanta Braves will try to build on their win over the Rays from Saturday. Joc Pederson and Freddie Freeman each had a home run and two RBIs with Pederson hitting a two-run homer while Freeman had a solo shot. Max Fried also had two RBIs with a double while Ozzie albies, Austin Riley and Dansby Swanson each had an RBI with Albies and Swanson each having a double as well to round out the scoring for Atlanta in the win. Kevan Smith added a double as well while Guillermo Heredia had a base hit of his own to finish off the offense for the Braves in the loss. Max Fried got the win after tossing seven shutout innings, giving up just four hits while striking out seven in the win. Drew Smyly will start here and is 7-3 with a 4.48 ERA and 68 strikeouts this season. in his career, Smyly is 1-1 with a 4.96 ERA and 16 strikeouts against Tampa Bay.
Tampa Bay is 14-5 in their last 19 game three matchups and 42-17 in their last 59 Sunday games while the under is 6-1 in their last 7 games against a left-handed starter. Atlanta is 55-27 in their last 82 Sunday games and 1-8 in their last 9 interleague home games while the over is 3-0-1 in their last 4 game three matchups.
This is a tough one to call in the series finale, but I’m going to lean the way of Atlanta here. The Rays just have trouble putting together solid results on the road and Atlanta, well, they may have lost Ronald Acuna Jr., but they still have a lot of talent within the lineup and I just don’t see any way that the Rays muster up enough to get the win here. Give me the Braves here.
