Castillo Will Dominate Angels On Sunday

Angels vs. Mariners, 4:10 ET

I mentioned in my other article today that this past week has been rather ugly. What I didn't mention was one of the positive plays that I had. The other day, I took the Colorado Rockies to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers through five innings, and that came true, paying out at +230. It was a nice way to cover some of the other losses, but still made for a down week. I've also mentioned recently that I was going to take some more chances on plus money or different things because I built a big enough bankroll where I felt I could take some chances. I'm going to scale that back a bit and stick to what works, which brings me to this game between the Angels and Mariners. 

Every time I look at the Angels franchise, it is hard for me to understand just how brutal this club has been for the past decade or so.  For the past ten years, the club has had the MVP on its team five times. That's half of the decade, the team has the player who was voted best in the league, and somehow they can't find a way to make the playoffs. It is mindboggling! The club spends money on players to try and bolster the team, which I absolutely love, but they just seemingly go there and do nothing. In the past ten years or so, they have had Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, Albert Pujols, and Anthony Rendon. The first three guys should be easy Hall of Fame guys. The last one was playing great baseball before coming to Los Angeles and has done nothing since signing his contract. Rendon has been on the injured list for the majority of the season, but that's not really new. I get that the Angels don't have a huge fan base but this sucks that nothing works out. Maybe they need Jospeh Gordon Levitt to need to be adopted again for them to become relevant. In any case, as losers of eight of their past ten games, not much is working out for them. Today they send out Griffin Canning to try and beat their division rival Mariners. I actually think Canning is a decent starter, but he can be fairly inconsistent. The hope for the Angels is that he found his groove in May as he had a 2.60 ERA last month and a 7.13 ERA in April. Mariners hitters aren't great against him, hitting just .238 over 42 at-bats, but that's not too shabby either. 

May 21, 2024; Houston, Texas, USA; Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher Griffin Canning (47) delivers a pitch during the second inning against the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

On the other side of the diamond lie the Mariners. This team came into the season struggling a bit, but has since found a way to pull themselves together. They have been great on their home turf so far, going 20-11 this year when playing in Seattle. The club isn't dominant offensively, highlighted by their .223 batting average and only having scored 225 runs this season, but with their pitching staff, the offense really doesn't need to be that dominant. They seemingly have five guys that are capable of pitching a shutout any time they take the mound. The team ERA is 3.53, but the WHIP is 1.07. They don't really issue free passes, as they have nearly a 5:1 strikeout-to-walk ratio for the season. Today Luis Castillo takes the bump to try and close out a sweep of the Angels. Castillo has been alarmingly consistent after a big of struggle to start the season. Since April 14th, Castillo has made nine stats. He has allowed exactly two earned runs in seven of the starts, and zero earned runs in the other two, with just one of those outings not seeing him go at least six innings. It seems like lately if he is giving up runs it is due to home runs. The Angels are hitting just .203 off of Castillo through 63 at-bats. Luis Rengifo is one guy to be weary of as he has launched three homers off of Castillo in past games. 

No disrespect to Canning, but Castillo is significantly better than him. I think Castillo's expectations are also more reliable than what you can expect from Canning, which has proven to be inconsistent. I think Castillo can keep the Angels scoreless in this game and I think the Mariners should be able to muster at least one or two runs against Canning. I'll back the run line through five innings at -135, which is higher than I normally like to play a run line, but I think it is a pretty sure bet. 

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