On Saturday, the first-place Tampa Bay Rays welcomed back a strong arm to their rotation. After missing the first few weeks of the season due to an oblique strain sustained during spring training, right-hander Tyler Glasnow made his season debut against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Rays have decided to option reliever Cooper Criswell to Triple-A. If you are learning how to be a baseball bookie, you should know that when it comes to this sport, the status and health of individual players is very important.
A simple change in the roster can mean a total change in the outcome of the game, and so will the odds for that particular game. In addition, the performance of baseball players is mostly evaluated individually. Thus, your analysis of these players will be important. It is, after all, one of the characteristics of a successful bookie: the ability to analyze sports data well.
Tyler Glasnow and the Tampa Bay Rays
In his first start of the year, Glasnow threw 83 pitches over 4 1/3 innings, striking out eight batters while giving up three runs on five hits and a walk. His fastball velocity decreased by about 1 mph compared to last year, but that is to be anticipated considering Glasnow is still recovering from having missing spring training. On his astounding 45% swing-and-miss percentage of 38 swings on Saturday, he produced 17 misses.
In case you come across his name on MLB wagers in your bookie solutions software, remember that Glasnow is one of the best pitchers in the league when he’s healthy. His 2.57 ERA (157 ERA+) and 4.59 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 94 innings in the aforementioned 16 starts.
Having Glasnow back is a relief for the Rays’ fans. After all, the Rays’ rotation has been hit by a number of injuries. And yet despite that, they came into Saturday with the best record in Major League Baseball. Even on Friday night, Tampa defeated the Dodgers in game one of the series, 9-3, with the credit going to the efforts from both  Yandy Dáz and Christian Bethancourt.
