Giants vs. Tigers prediction and odds for Monday, July 24

This has to feel like the road trip that won’t end for the San Francisco Giants. They’ve lost five straight on this trip out east after losing 6-1 to the Nationals yesterday to finish off a three-game sweep. Before they can get back to San Francisco, the Giants have a one-game pitstop in Detroit. The Giants and Detroit Tigers will make up for a postponement back on April 16, with an afternoon game at Comerica Park today. Detroit salvaged the final game of their series with San Diego over the weekend and will host the Angels for three-games next.

For this layover, The Giants will go with Ross Stripling to make his 10th start and 15th appearance of the year. Stripling is 0-3 for the 54-46 Giants and has a 5.92 ERA. The 45-54 Tigers will counter with 0-1 Tarik Skubal who has a 5.25 ERA in just three starts this season.

Detroit is favored at home and we’ll see if they can extend San Francisco’s losing streak today. Let’s check out the odds.

Giants vs. Tigers odds, run line and total

Giants vs. Tigers prediction and pick

We can talk about the numbers and we’ll get into that, but first let’s talk a little bit of human nature. The Giants have been on a very tough road trip that has seen them drop five straight games after winning the first five games of this series. Now, they’re so close to getting back home for a series against the Oakland Athletics which will feel like salvation, but there’s no chance that they want to play this game in Detroit. They’re annoyed they have to delay seeing their families and sleeping in their own beds, they’ve also had to travel while Detroit was already home.

That stuff all matters in this game, but the other thing that matters is San Francisco’s inability to hit lefties. Tarik Skubal made his return to the team and the rotation this month and had two scoreless outings before getting shelled for seven runs on eight hits last time out. That understandably made his ERA skyrocket, but he has a good strikeout to walk ratio with 14/3 so far and his two other outings were great. Skubal could have another great one today.

The Giants have a versatile lineup that has a lot of platoon players that get opportunities against just righties or just lefties. That seemed like a strength of this team, but lately it’s been a weakness. The Giants have been absolutely terrible against lefties this month with a .597 OPS which has dropped them to 28th in team OPS against lefties for the year.

They’ve had some bad luck with a league worst BABIP of .218 over that stretch, but entering this month they were 22nd in large part because of a BABIP of .336 against lefties which was 3rd highest in baseball. 

I’m fading the Giants in this one big time, so I’ll take Detroit on the run line as a favorite.  

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change