Lindy's Long Balls: The Roof Is Shut, And Randy Owes US One

Friday gets graded before anyone talks about Saturday: 0-for-3. And the box scores were downright cruel about it. Gunnar went 2-for-4 and personally lit the fuse on a five-run second, leading off an inning in which the first six Orioles all hit safely against Scherzer, while the Baltimore homers went to Beavers and COBY MAYO, who homered four times in a four-game stretch this week and should honestly start paying rent in this column. Bell drew a walk in a game where the only bomb belonged to Angel Martínez. And Randy? Randy scored the go-ahead run in the tenth in Sacramento, doing everything but the one thing we paid for, before the bullpen handed it back on a two-run walk-off homer. The tally absorbs the punch and stands up:

Date	Play	Price	Effective	Result	Risked	P/L
8/17	Bobby Witt Jr. (KC)	16¢	+490	✅	0.25u	+1.23u
8/17	Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC)	21¢	+351	✅	0.25u	+0.88u
8/17	Mookie Betts (LAD)	15¢	+529	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/18	Jackson Merrill (SD)	13¢	+625	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/18	Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC)	18¢	+425	✅	0.25u	+1.06u
8/18	Mike Trout (LAA)	19¢	+398	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/18	Jo Adell (CLE)	14¢	+574	✅	0.25u	+1.43u
8/18	Corbin Carroll (AZ)	9¢	+945	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/19	Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC)	14¢	+574	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/19	Bryce Harper (PHI)	19¢	+398	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/19	Gunnar Henderson (BAL)	15¢	+529	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/20	Pete Alonso (BAL)	21¢	+351	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/20	Zach Neto (LAA)	17¢	+456	✅	0.25u	+1.14u
8/21	Francisco Lindor (NYM)	16¢	+490	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/21	Julio Rodríguez (SEA)	17¢	+456	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/21	Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC)	21¢	+351	✅	0.25u	+0.88u
8/22	Corbin Carroll (AZ)	16¢	+490	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/22	Jo Adell (CLE)	19¢	+398	✅	0.25u	+1.00u
8/23	Jo Adell (CLE)	23¢	+313	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/23	Jackson Merrill (SD)	18¢	+425	✅	0.25u	+1.06u
8/23	Ronald Acuña Jr. (ATL)	13¢	+625	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/24	Junior Caminero (TB)	20¢	+373	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/24	Pete Crow-Armstrong (CHC)	21¢	+351	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/24	Byron Buxton (MIN)	28¢	+240	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/25	Bryce Harper (PHI)	16¢	+490	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/25	Fernando Tatis Jr. (SD)	15¢	+529	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/25	Manny Machado (SD)	13¢	+625	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/26	Matt Olson (ATL)	18¢	+425	✅	0.25u	+1.06u
8/26	Pete Alonso (BAL)	18¢	+425	✅	0.25u	+1.06u
8/27	Jac Caglianone (KC)	19¢	+398	✅	0.25u	+1.00u
8/27	Jackson Chourio (MIL)	17¢	+456	✅	0.25u	+1.14u
8/28	Matt Olson (ATL)	26¢	+266	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/28	Ozzie Albies (ATL)	14¢	+574	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/28	Zach Neto (LAA)	17¢	+456	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/29	Alex Bregman (CHC)	13¢	+625	✅	0.25u	+1.56u
8/29	Jackson Merrill (SD)	12¢	+685	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/30	Sal Stewart (CIN)	21¢	+351	✅	0.25u	+0.88u
8/30	Pete Alonso (BAL)	27¢	+252	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/31	Gunnar Henderson (BAL)	19¢	+398	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
8/31	Seiya Suzuki (CHC)	20¢	+373	✅	0.25u	+0.93u
9/1	Manny Machado (SD)	21¢	+351	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/1	Jordan Walker (STL)	book (bet365)	+350	✅	0.25u	+0.88u
9/1	Jackson Chourio (MIL)	22¢	+331	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/2	Wilyer Abreu (BOS)	15¢	+529	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/2	Francisco Lindor (NYM)	15¢	+529	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/3	Wilyer Abreu (BOS)	book (DraftKings)	+426	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/3	Cal Raleigh (SEA)	21¢	+351	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/4	Jac Caglianone (KC)	19¢	+398	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/4	Jordan Walker (STL)	21¢	+351	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/6	Jackson Chourio (MIL)	14¢	+574	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/6	Matt Olson (ATL)	22¢	+331	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/6	Brayan Rocchio (CLE)	6¢	+1464	✅	0.25u	+3.66u
9/7	Wilyer Abreu (BOS)	15¢	+529	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/7	Jo Adell (CLE)	14¢	+574	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/8	Carter Jensen (KC)	15¢	+529	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/8	Nolan Arenado (AZ)	13¢	+625	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/8	Miguel Vargas (CWS)	16¢	+490	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/10	Munetaka Murakami (CWS)	21¢	+351	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/11	Gunnar Henderson (BAL)	14¢	+574	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/11	Josh Bell (MIN)	book (BetMGM)	+725	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
9/11	Randy Arozarena (SEA)	21¢	+351	❌	0.25u	−0.25u
	TOTAL			17-for-61	15.25u	+9.85u (65% ROI)

Seventeen for 61, still up 9.85 units, still nothing but quarter-unit deployments. It's college football Saturday, which means baseball's job tonight is simple: be the profitable second screen. Two evening bombs, one from my film room and one I already fired, timed so you can sweat them between fourth quarters.

Carroll's ticket is better at a book tonight, +500 against the exchange's +456. Randy's is still better on the exchange, by 15. The rest is two starters who give the ball up to the opposite hand, and two bats built to take it.

Corbin Carroll, the left-handed bat the first ticket rides at Chase Field tonight, at 20 homers after Friday's two-run shot off these same Rangers. His case, and Randy's, are below.

The Closed-Roof Special (8:10 ET)

It's 102 degrees in Phoenix today, still 101 at first pitch on the National Weather Service's hourly line, and the game listing already reads what that means: roof closed, 76 degrees inside, wind zero. The air conditioning hums, and the only weather that matters is the front moving through the pitch mix of Kumar Rocker. The Rangers righty owns exactly one good pitch, a slider that's getting slugged just .340 on my pitch-level pull. He throws it 38% of the time because EVERYTHING else is a liability. The sinker, nearly 30% of his mix, is being slugged .491 with a .462 expected mark. The cutter is worse: .590 slugged, .582 expected. Even the four-seam gets slugged .426. The season line around that mix is a 4.61 ERA and a 1.44 WHIP. He has allowed 20 home runs in 134.2 innings, and the damage flows one direction. Fourteen of the 20 belong to left-handed bats, who hit .286 and slug .493 against him. Right-handers slug .363. Four homers surrendered over his last five starts, none of which finished the sixth inning. When the slider isn't ending the at-bat, a lefty is getting something flat.

The lefty we're sending, with old business on this tally after stiffing us twice on August fliers: Corbin Carroll. The profile is exactly what this spot orders. He's at 20 homers on a 12.3% barrel rate with 48% hard-hit. His 91.7-mph average exit velocity ranks in the top 50 among the 545 hitters with enough balls in play to qualify, and it rides a 15.6-degree average launch angle with real lift. And he homered off these very Rangers LAST NIGHT, a two-run shot in the sixth of a 9-1 laugher. That's what moved him from 19 to 20.

Honesty in full: the average is .240 overall and it's .206 against righties, which is why a bat this loud costs 17 cents. But read the split the way the ticket does. Fourteen of his 20 homers came against right-handers, and he's slugging .429 in that half of the platoon on a .206 average, which is a hitter who does one thing to right-handed pitching and does it in the air. That one thing is the bet. Our own park table reads Chase as about neutral for home runs, so I'm not selling you the building, and the roof is not a reason either; it just takes weather out of the picture in both directions, no wind in and no wind out. I'm selling you the arm: 14 of 20 to lefties, and a lefty who hits righties in the air.

A register note: at my 5:10 p.m. ET book pull, BetMGM is hanging +500, and so are Fanatics and Rebet, which beats Kalshi's +456 by 44 points, a point and change of implied probability (16.7% versus 18.0%). If you bank at one of those, that's your window; the exchange's 17¢ ask was still sitting there at the same timestamp, 16¢ bid, and +456 is still a fair ticket on this collision.

The Sacramento Run-Back (9:40 ET, Already Fired)

Here's a sentence you don't often read in this column: I like the opposing pitcher. Gage Jump is a legitimately promising young lefty. He has struck out a quarter of the hitters he's faced this year, 106 of 425, and he has allowed only 10 homers all season across 19 starts. I fired at his lineup anyway, because the LOFT plus the game environment is too good to pass up.

Look under the hood. Jump's average launch angle allowed is 15.7 degrees, and he gets more outs in the air than on the ground, a 0.76 ground-out-to-air-out ratio, which is a LOT of baseballs testing the sky for a guy whose homer luck has held. His four-seamer, 46.6% usage on my pull, is being slugged .497. Eight of his 10 homers allowed have gone to right-handed bats, who slug .432 against him while lefties slug .348. And the second-half fade is real: a 6.30 ERA over his last six starts and 7.58 for the month of August, inside a 5.12 ERA and 1.49 WHIP for the year. The strikeouts are real. So is the contact in the air.

Now the environment, and a correction to my own instinct. Sutter Health Park is NOT a launching pad; our own park table reads it as a mild home run suppressor, and I said as much on Friday's card. The weather isn't an edge either. The National Weather Service's hourly line, pulled at 5:10 p.m. ET, has Sacramento at 77 degrees at first pitch with a 10 mph breeze out of the south-southwest, partly cloudy, clearing; which way that blows against the fences is unconfirmed. So the building is a mild suppressor, the air is a wash, and the case rests on the arm: a fly-ball lefty whose homers go to right-handers.

The righty, back for the second straight night because the process was never the problem: Randy Arozarena. He hits .293 with a .497 slug against lefties, 7 of his 22 homers in 147 at-bats in that split, one every 21 at-bats against one every 25 versus right-handers, brings a 90.5-mph average exit velocity, and spent Friday doing literally everything except the assignment: 1-for-5, two runs scored, including the go-ahead run in the tenth. Make up for yesterday's sins, please, Randy.

This is the one where the bat argues with me: his 9.6-degree average launch angle is the flattest on our card, his barrel rate is 7.7%, and he's homerless in his last 9 games, since homers on back-to-back days against Boston, Aug. 31 and Sept. 1. That is precisely why the ticket still costs 17 cents on a bat this good against a fly-ball lefty whose homers go to right-handers. I'm buying the arm and the split, and I know the launch angle is the counterargument.

The register: I fired at 17¢, +456 effective, when FanDuel was posting +400, so my entry led the best book by 56. Since then the exchange ticked up a cent and the books drifted out. At 5:10 p.m. ET, FanDuel, BetRivers, Circa and BetParx are all +410, and the exchange has drifted to a 17¢ bid, 18¢ ask. If you're arriving now, an 18¢ ask is +425 effective, which still beats the best book by 15 points, so the exchange remains the register here, just a slightly worse version of the ticket I hold. I'm in. Again.

The Card

Two lines for a football Saturday. Kalshi's taker fee, roughly 7% × price × (1 − price), about a penny here, is baked into every effective number; the Kalshi fees breakdown carries the full math, and if the venue is new to you, start with how to bet MLB on Kalshi. Book prices are the live MLB home run odds screen, pulled as of 5:10 p.m. ET on Sept. 12; the exchange quotes are the same timestamp:

• Corbin Carroll At 17¢ → +456 effective. Best books at 5:10 p.m.: BetMGM, Fanatics, Rebet and Borgata at +500, then DraftKings +493, so the book wins this one by 44; take the +500 if you've got it, the exchange if you don't. Exchange: 16¢ bid / 17¢ ask, my number still on the board
• Randy Arozarena At 17¢ → +456 effective, fired. Best books at 5:10 p.m.: FanDuel, BetRivers, Circa and BetParx at +410. Exchange: 17¢ bid / 18¢ ask; at an 18¢ ask (+425) the exchange still beats the best book by 15

Quarter unit each, same as all 61 rows above. Twin +456s. Sweat them as a pair between kickoffs, and check both lineups before lock, because neither had been posted as of 5:10 p.m. ET and a ticket on a bat that doesn't hit is just a donation.

These are market prices and model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. Every Kalshi effective number above already includes its taker fee; the book prices are the books' own. The sportsbooks named above are a separate thing entirely: 21+, legal only in certain states, and subject to their own terms.

Two tickets, two different best registers, and the only way to know that on a Saturday when you'd rather be watching football is to hold every book up against the exchange at the same time. That's the whole job, and it's what OddsShopper Pro does across every board at once, from the live MLB home run odds screen I pulled these ladders off to the live odds screen carrying tonight's game lines, while the fee math above translates the Kalshi side. It runs a 7-day free trial, then code LINDY25 takes 25% off your first week or month.

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More on this: Lindy's Long Balls: JUST Three After Dark · Lindy's Long Balls: One Bullet, The Loudest Bat Meets A Comeback Fastball · Lindy's Long Balls: 107 In The Shade, A Comeback Arm Walks Into The Furnace · Lindy's Long Balls: The Miracle Cashed, Now We Rob The Sleeping Board

Final Thoughts

A closed roof in the desert where everything but the slider gets punished, and a Sacramento run-back on a bat that's done everything lately except the one thing we pay for.

The sermon plays through the skid the same as through the heater: at 17 cents apiece, each of these misses about five times in six. The price is honest, the stake is boring, and 61 identical rows is why one rough week reads like a line item instead of a eulogy. Enjoy the football. Check the baseball between snaps.

If you want the whole board instead of my two, the automated home run picks today hub prices every bat on the slate, and the rest of the crew posts free expert picks today.

I'll keep putting my best out there every single day. Two swings tonight, one quarter unit apiece, and Randy, the column is watching.

— Lindy

Lindy's Long Balls runs daily on OddsShopper; Friday's three-ticket card is here, and Thursday's one-bullet card is here.