J.D. Martinez Archives - US Sports News

Daily Dinger: Best MLB Home Run Picks Today (Royce Lewis’ Stellar Return Continues)

There are 15 Major League Baseball games on Saturday, plenty of action for us to comb through and cash in.

In the home run market, I've targeted three sluggers that are in strong position to go yard and cash in at long odds, including Royce Lewis, who has returned from an early season injury to hit two home runs in his first three games back.

Lewis, along with J.D. Martinez and Jeremy Pena headlines Saturday's Daily Dinger card.

Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook

J.D. Martinez

Major League Baseball heads to London, where hitters should feast with the wind blowing out at about 10 miles per hour. This sets up favorably for Martinez, who has elite metrics against left pitching, posting .342/.419/.553 splits this season.

The Mets will face Ranger Suarez on Saturday, the lefty pitcher who has been posting Cy Young like metrics this season for Philadelphia, driving up the typical price Martinez would have against lefties.

Given the hitting conditions at London Stadium, I'll bite despite Suarez having a strong year.

Royce Lewis

Lewis has three home runs in 11 at bats this season despite missing a chunk of the year. The former top prospect has proven amidst the injury bug that he can hit at a high level, and I'll go back to the well against a below average Pirates bullpen.

This will be an opener game of sorts for the Pirates, who will turn Carmen Mlodzinski first and there should be plenty of different arms facing Lewis. It also helps that the wind is blowing out at PNC Park at over 10 miles per hour to left field, all the direction that he has hit homers this year.

Jeremy Pena

Pena tears up lefty pitching, hitting .333 on the year with a .545 slugging percentage. Despite limited at bats against lefties, Pena has hit two of his five homers against southpaws and draws a regression bound Tyler Anderson on Saturday.

Anderson doesn't strike many batters out, sitting at 16% and he allows fly ball contact at nearly 63%. Without a ton of fastball velocity, Pena should have little issue getting a barrel on the ball, Anderson is in the 21st percentile in that metric, per MLBStatcast.

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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8 May 24 Jimm Sallivan

Cardinals’ Willson Contreras Injures Arm in Catcher’s Interference Incident

St. Louis Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras exited Tuesday's game against the New York Mets after taking the full force of a swing from J.D. Martinez to the left forearm. Contreras was diagnosed with a fractured left arm and will need a lengthy stay on the injured list as a result.

Contreras was visibly in pain as the Cardinals' medical staff attended to his arm. To make matters worse, the play was ruled as catcher's interference, meaning Martinez was awarded first base.

Replay of the incident showed that Contreras was positioned remarkably close to Martinez. According to John Denton of MLB.com, the team had encouraged Contreras to move closer to the plate as a means of getting more low strike calls from umpires. With Contreras positioning himself particularly close to the plate, he put himself in harm’s way of Martinez’s swing, resulting in Tuesday's scary arm injury.

In an attempt to help catcher Willson Contreras get more low strikes, the #STLCards have him moved up closer to the plate. However, JD Martinez's bat hit Contreras on the left forearm during his swing.
Contreras is out of the game. He was in obvious pain, yelling out right away. pic.twitter.com/0XCgzBQG0D
— John Denton (@JohnDenton555) May 8, 2024

Iván Herrera replaced Contreras, who had doubled in his lone plate appearance of the game. On the season, Contreras has six home runs and 12 RBI to go with a .931 OPS.