The baseball season has entered the final month of the regular season. It is hard to believe how quickly everything is moving, but there is no slowing down, so we need to keep up. The NFL is about to start, College Football is back already, and the WNBA playoffs begin soon. Next month we get back the NHL and NBA, but first we need to finish this regular season and see how the playoffs stack up. The Mets won’t be in the postseason, but today’s opponent, the Rays, will be.

The New York Mets had another disappointing season. They are currently 62-76 for the season and have losing home and road records. The problem has never been talent. They have plenty of big names on their roster, which is part of what makes it so hard to understand why the Mets are losing. Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, Bo Bichette, Luis Robert Jr., etc. These are all guys that have All-Star appearances and a lot of success in the past, but for whatever reason it just hasn’t been able to click for the team.

The offense hasn’t been great, but it isn’t like the pitching staff has been much better. Tonight they send out Sean Manaea to the mound. He has bounced between the starting rotation and the bullpen. Manaea has appeared in 28 games, and exactly half of them have been starts. Overall, he has a 4.55 ERA, and opponents are batting .258 against him. He really isn’t that much different as a starter as opposed to as a reliever. August wasn’t a great month, but it did start well. In the first two games, he turned in 13 innings and allowed just three earned runs. In the final three, he allowed 14 earned runs in 18 innings of work. Overall, Rays hitters are 5-for-25 against Manaea, with Yandy Diaz and Nick Fortes both having two homers off of him.

The Tampa Bay Rays are one of the best teams in baseball, and you probably couldn’t list almost anyone outside of their rotation on their team. They are a bunch of professional hitters. Junior Caminero is a very good player, and he has racked up homers and RBIs and is even batting .282 this season, but he still isn’t a household name. Overall, the Rays are batting .260 as a team, and they are only middle of the pack in runs scored, so they need to find a way to get more people across the plate, because they aren’t struggling to get guys on base.

Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays grounds out to the pitcher during the first inning of the MLB All-Star Game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pa., on July 14, 2026. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

The good news is their pitching has been phenomenal this season, and that helps with lower-scoring games. Today they send out a guy they traded for from the Mets, Freddy Peralta. For the season, Peralta is 6-11 with a 5.11 ERA and a 1.41 ERA – part of the reason the Mets struggled, and he was traded away. His starts with the Rays have been a bit of a mixed bag. He had two starts where he allowed five or more earned runs. The other three outings were three starts of three earned runs or fewer. He’s been great against Mets hitters, holding them to a .131 average against him.

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I’m going to put out two player props here and a play on the game. One thing I want to do is take Lindor under 0.5 hits and under 0.5 hits on Christopher Morel. Lindor is 1-for-11 against Peralta with five strikeouts, and Morel is 2-for-11 with seven strikeouts. I think we get some good value on both guys tonight.

Tampa Bay Rays’ Jorge Mateo celebrates his walk-off hit against San Diego Padres pitcher David Morgan during the 11th inning of a baseball game Sunday, Aug. 30, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)

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For the game, I am taking the Rays. Peralta is one of the better pitchers in the game when he is locked in. The Mets are a team that has struggled all year long, and I think this is one where Peralta can get the best of them. The Rays have had some success against Manaea and he isn’t exactly a reliable starter. Give me the Rays on the moneyline.

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