The Toronto Blue Jays host the red-hot Boston Red Sox for a three-game series starting Monday night.
Boston has won seven straight games and 32 of their last 44. The impressive run as moved the Red Sox from a disappointment in April to the top wild-card spot in the American League.
This is despite getting zero starts from Chris Sale and Nathan Eovaldi sitting on the 15-day IL. This series does not get easier for the Red Sox as they are missing a few players to the COVID-19 list.
Anyone that is unvaccinated is not able to cross the Canadian border. Their closer Tanner Houck and Jarren Duran — their current center fielder while Kike Hernandez is out — will not play for the entire series in Toronto.
Red Sox vs. Blue Jays odds
Odds provided by BetMGM
Spread: BOS +1.5 (-125) v.s TOR -1.5 (+105)
Moneyline: BOS (+155) vs. TOR (-190)
Total: Over 9.5 -105 | Under 9.5 (-115)
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Red Sox vs. Blue Jays probable pitchers
Connor Seabold (0-0, 0.00) vs. Kevin Gausman (5-6, 3.19)
Red Sox vs. Blue Jays prediction
The Red Sox have defied the odds for most of the season. They’ve had several injury concerns and now they are missing their closer, who has actually given the Red Sox stability in their bullpen.
Boston will likely be underdogs for each game of this series. Tonight’s game will be their longest odds, however, as they send Seabold to the mound for his season debut. The Red Sox prospect had a cup of coffee with the big-league squad last year pitching only three innings.
None of those stats are really worth looking at since the sample size is extremely small. Seabold is the 14th-ranked prospect in the Red Sox system per MLB Pipeline. Their prospect overview explains that his best pitch is his changeup with mostly below-average other pitches. His ceiling is projected as a back-of-the-rotation starter.
Opposing him is Kevin Gausman, whose peripheral stats are excellent and show that he is still an elite pitcher in baseball. In fact, Fangraphs is giving Gausman the best WAR rating of any pitcher in all of baseball this season.
The pitching mismatch here, on top of the Red Sox missing their top bullpen arm, is a recipe for disaster. The Blue Jays lineup is every bit as good as the Red Sox lineup as well. Backing the Blue Jays is the correct play for Monday’s series opener.
BetMGM is offering two tasty parlays for this matchup in Toronto. The first is the Blue Jays first-half moneyline at -140 if you really want to play the advantageous pitchers matchup.
However, the best bet for tonight’s game is for both teams to score three or more runs in the first five innings +333 on BetMGM. These two average 2.68 runs in the first five innings of games which is good enough for both teams to be in the top 10 in baseball.
The first-half total is set at 5.5 (+116) so the implied total isn’t that far off from this alternate prop bet.
Red Sox vs. Blue Jays MLB picks
Both teams to score three runs each in the first five innings, +333 (BetMGM)
Blue Jays first-half moneyline, -145 (Caesars)