Sean Alvarez

THE PLAY: Cincinnati Reds -126 H Greene (RHP), K Hendricks (RHP) Must Start

Hunter Greene is making his 2nd start since coming off the IL after re-aggravating the strain in his groin. Hunter made his first start off the IL against the Phillies last week while throwing 6 innings of scoreless ball and striking out 6. Greene not only had his velocity and movement where it needed to be but had polished command throughout the start without giving up any walks. The Angels are hitting just .230 over the last 15 days and will face Hunter Greene for the first time in their careers, a tough task against most major league pitchers and compounded with Greene’s velocity and movement. 

The Angels will turn to Kyle Hendricks who holds a 4.88 ERA on the season and throws to contact while averaging 0.68 strikeouts per inning pitched. Kyle will be facing the Reds for the first time this year but does have 82 combined plate appearances against the hitters he will be facing today. Throughout those 82 plate appearances, these Reds hitters hold a .329 batting average against Hendricks with 2 home runs and 6 doubles. Hendricks will be backed up by a poor bullpen that is the 4th worst bullpen in the league with a combined 4.79 ERA and threw extended outings against the Athletics.

THE PLAY: Harris English over Corey Conners (-115)

6-0 PGA Tour Sweep!! Sean is coming off a 6-0 sweep with his PGA Tour plays last week while up +17.4 units. Get Sean's All Access package this week that includes all pre-tournament plays and will be updated by any round-by-round plays throughout the week.

Corey had a solid stretch of golf mid-season this year but bled strokes across the board in back-to-back starts coming into this week. Corey had a solid finish at the Open 3 starts back but the conditions that week are drastically different than what we will see this week with a lot of what we saw at the Open depending on the luck you got within your lie in the rough and/or bounces from the fairways. Connors was able to hit his irons well 2 weeks back at TPC Southwind but struggled in all parts of his game otherwise and carried that into last week at Caves Valley. Corey is not giving me a lot of signs that he will turn that around this week at an Eastlake course that will play more difficult than we have seen it play in years past. I think fading him in Round 1 is a solid play at the right number.

Harris English is quietly playing some solid golf coming into this week and is coming off a T12 finish last week while losing strokes on approach but carried his way through on the greens. Harris has been streaky with his putter while gaining a significant number of strokes to the field putting in weeks but has been mixed in with some off weeks with the flat stick. English has 3 starts at Eastlake, none of which were all that great stat wise, but his most recent start came 4 years ago here, so I am not putting a lot of weight into how he played here back then. I like that Harris has not been putting himself in trouble and forcing birdie chances while leaning on his putter and expect a similar approach at Eastlake while allowing Conners to make mistakes in the 1st round come Thursday.