Written by Rohit Ghosh

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Dodgers vs Giants: Bumgarner vs Maeda

It's a race to win the National League (NL) West as the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers get set to host second-place San Francisco Giants in a three-game series starting Tuesday night.

Of the three pitching matchups, Tuesday night's features potentially the most entertaining of them all with two studs on the mound. It'll be Kenta Maeda's 25th start, matched up against Madison Bumgarner who enters Tuesday's game second in the league in ERA (2.25).

Bumgarner can shut any team down, and Maeda - on the right night - can do the same. Edge to Bumgarner, of course, but not as much of a landslide as some would expect.

What do the sims say?



Heading into Tuesday night's matchup, Bumgarner averages 6.76 innings per start. The 6.2 average in sims isn't too far off his season average.

Picking this game -
At least on the money line - is a toss-up. Both sides have about 45-to-55 percent chance of winning, depending on a series of variables. For SF, the variable that throws that winning probability outside that range is a quality start by Bumgarner.

If Bumgarner has a quality start, the Giants have a 56 percent chance of winning. His simulated strikeout to walk ratio is 4.5 and he has a about a 40 percent chance of having a 5 to 1 K/BB ratio. When he has at least a 5/1 ratio, SF wins 50 percent of the time.



Best Bet:
All eyes are on the mound in tonight's matchup, and AccuScore data has no problem taking the OVER with Bumgarner and Maeda. It's a four-star (out of four) hot trend, with AccuScore going 6-3 (67%, +270 units) picking on SF road game totals in the past 30 days.

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