The tale of the tape in this one comes down to the starting pitchers.

Pitching is easily one of the most important factors to a strong team in baseball. You could argue that no team in Major League Baseball has a better pitching group than the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Tonight, the Minnesota Twins will begin a quick two-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. How they’ll be able to beat the Dodgers depends on their own batters.

They suffered a 3-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday but won the series two games to one. With a batting average of .251, the Twins batters are good but the Dodgers are better.

Getting the start on the mound tonight for the Twins is Joe Ryan. Ryan has a record of 8-4 this season with an ERA of 3.67 over the span of 90.2 innings.

He’s thrown 89 strikeouts this season but can he do well against the Dodgers batting lineup? As we mentioned from the start, the most important part of the game is pitching.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have a ton of incredible pitchers, including Julio Urias. Urias will take the mound tonight with a record of 11-6 and an ERA of 2.57 this season.

Through 115.2 innings, the LHP Urias has thrown 109 strikeouts and has allowed only 90 hits. He went through a bit of a rough patch in the past but he’s ironed it out since then.

A big key for the Dodgers, aside from pitching, is the fact that they lead the league in on-base percentage (.336). They also have the third-best batting average in the league at .260.

With such a strong batting lineup and a great pitcher on the mound, it’s no surprise that the Dodgers are -235 in this game.

Ricky’s Pick: Los Angeles Dodgers -235, OVER