White Sox vs. Rangers MLB Bets, Picks & Predictions: Fade this Team Total in Favor of Elite Pitching

Ready to lock in your MLB bets? OddsJam’s MLB expert breaks down his top pick and prediction for today’s slate. Find the bet @BalesSJustin is eyeing below.

White Sox vs. Rangers Betting Odds

8:10 p.m. ET

The Texas Rangers will host Dylan Cease and the Chicago White Sox at Choctaw Stadium tonight. We’re backing elite pitching for this bet tonight.

Cease is throwing at an extremely high level this season. He owns an 11-4 record with a 2.01 ERA through 21 starts. His success is backed by a career-best 3.02 xFIP as well.

Cease boasts elite strikeout stuff, entering this game with a 33.3% strikeout rate. He also gets a solid 42.4% groundball rate to go along with an elite 24.8% hard-hit rate in 2022.

Cease owns a 38.7% flyball rate this season, which is a bit of an issue. With that being said, he’s held his opponents to a 0.69 HR/9 this season. His biggest issue is his 10.4% walk rate, which has gotten him into trouble at times.

Cease has been one of the best pitchers in the MLB in recent weeks. Overall, he’s allowed 1 or fewer earned runs in 17 of his 21 starts this season.

More importantly, he’s allowed 1 or fewer earned runs in each of his last 12 games. Over that span, he’s allowing a ridiculous 0.33 earned runs per game.

There is some concern with this game being played in Texas. Cease’s strikeout rate dips to 29.7%, his walk rate increases to 12.4%, and his xFIP jumps to 3.52 on the road. With that being said, he’s allowed only 1 earned run over his last 6 road starts.

Cease gets a solid matchup against the Rangers tonight. They’ve been an average offense in recent weeks, ranking 15th in the MLB in team wOBA (.308) and 17th in slugging percentage
(.393) over the last 14 days.

The Rangers have struggled quite a bit at home against right-handed pitching in recent weeks, though.

Since July 16th, they rank 17th in average (.244), 25th in slugging percentage (.364), and 26th in OPS (.647) at home against righties. Texas hasn’t scored more than 3 runs at home since July 14th.

Another key here is that the White Sox feature one of the best bullpens in the MLB. They boast a 3.31 xFIP over the last 30 days, which ranks third on this slate behind only the New York Mets
and Baltimore Orioles.

Cease should be able to throw at least 6 innings in this game, leaving 3 (or fewer) innings for the White Sox bullpen.

The biggest concern for this low of a total is Chicago’s struggling defense. Cease consistently has allowed unearned runs in 2022, and that could be a concern tonight. I’m not someone that is going to predict something like that, though.

The White Sox have allowed 3 or fewer earned runs in each of Cease’s last 6 starts, and I’m expecting them to do that again tonight.

White Sox vs. Rangers Betting Pick: Rangers Team Total Under 3 | -106 at FanDuel