How to Watch Pirates vs Rangers - Wednesday, April 22, 2026

-120O/U: 7.5
(-120/+100)+100

Pittsburgh Pirates – 1st Five Innings (F5) Moneyline (-120)
Braxton Ashcraft has been lucky since the start of last season, notching a 2.63 ERA despite the leading projection system (THE BAT) estimating his true talent level to be 3.73 — a 1.1 gap.
Explain: Pitchers that are overperforming should be expected to pitch worse going forward, which can create value if the lines are too heavily weighing the lucky, to-date overperformance.
Henry Davis – Over/Under 0.5 Hits (-115/-115)
Henry Davis has had bad variance on his side thus far when it comes to his batting average since the start of last season; his .168 figure is considerably lower than his .221 Expected Batting Average, based on the leading projection system (THE BAT X)’s interpretation of Statcast data.
Explain: xBA uses highly advanced Statcast data to measure a player’s batting average ability more accurately than actual batting average can.
Oneil Cruz – Over/Under 1.5 Total Bases (+110/-140)
Oneil Cruz hits a high percentage of his flyballs to center field (38.6% — 89th percentile) and will be challenged by the game’s 6th-deepest CF fences today.
Explain: This player’s skill set does not match up particularly well with the park he’s in today, which may lead to worse-than-usual performance.

Jack Leiter – Over/Under 5.5 Strikeouts (-135/+105)
Out of all SPs, Jack Leiter’s fastball velocity of 96 mph ranks in the 86th percentile this year.
Explain: Velocity is a key component to fastball success in generating strikeouts and preventing runs.
Josh Jung – Over/Under 0.5 Hits (-185/+140)
Josh Jung is projected to bat 5th on the lineup card in this matchup, which would be an upgrade from his 95% rate of hitting in the bottom-half of the batting order this year.
Explain: The higher in the order a player bats, the more plate appearances he will get and the more opportunities he will get to hit the Over for every market. A player who hits higher in the order than he normally does may provide extra value opportunity since the market may be based on him hitting lower.
As a team, Texas Rangers batters have not performed well when assessing hitting balls in the launch angle band that tends to result the most in home runs (between 23° and 34°), placing 4th-worst in the majors.
Explain: Balls that are hit too low can’t clear the fences, and balls that are hit too high generally don’t go far enough and are easy pop flies, but balls hit between 23° and 34° are far more likely to become home runs.

Over/Under 7.5 Game Total (-120/+100)
The Texas Rangers have hit the Game Total Under in 14 of their last 21 games at home (+7.35 Units / 32% ROI)
Pittsburgh Pirates – Run Line -1.5 (+150)
The Pittsburgh Pirates have hit the Run Line in 24 of their last 40 games (+7.05 Units / 13% ROI)
Josh H. Smith – Over/Under 0.5 Singles (+125/-160)
Josh H. Smith has hit the Singles Under in 8 of his last 9 games at home (+6.30 Units / 43% ROI)

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