The Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland Guardians complete their three-game series at Progressive Field at 1:40 p.m. ET Sunday with Toronto trying to avoid being swept for the second series in a row.

Cleveland took the first two games at its home ballpark by scores of 7-1 and 6-3 and is ever-so-slightly favoured at -115 while bet365 oddsmakers have set the over-under total at 8.5 runs.

Toronto simply hasn’t been able to sustain any momentum this season. Now, stuck stubbornly below .500 with the trade deadline rapidly approaching, it could choose to trade off major league pieces for prospects, making the second half all about playing out the remaining schedule. After taking two of three from the Guardians at home June 14-16, fuelling a bit of hope, the Blue Jays got swept vs. the Boston Red Sox and now are in danger of making it two winless series in a row. The pitching, which has been working without much of a safety net most of the season, has been as big a culprit as the faulty offence so far this series. The Guardians have been tough on Toronto’s pitchers, including working them for 70 pitches in the second inning of Friday’s game alone. Blue Jays pitchers walked five batters in that inning, leading to seven Cleveland runs. Then, on Saturday, Cleveland touched the Jays’ best pitcher this season, José Berríos, for three home runs and five earned runs in five innings. Toronto’s pitching, which carried the team for all of 2023, has been struggling a bit of late. After starting the season with a 1.44 ERA in March and April, Berríos has a 5.32 ERA in four June starts. Overall, Toronto’s offence has been a no-show for the second series in a row. On Saturday, the Jays moved just two runners into scoring position and went hitless in each of those situations.

A year after showing scant power, scoring most of their runs on contact hitting and aggressive base running, the Guardians have muscled up far more in 2024. They’re not as powerful as the brawny teams the Blue Jays have to contend with in the AL East, the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees, but they rank a respectable ninth in MLB in home runs. They’re also being powered by one of the game’s most electric leadoff hitters. Steven Kwan, who was 2-for-4 with a home run on Saturday, is batting .390 with a 1.013 OPS for the Guardians this season, though he has yet to hit the plate appearance threshold to qualify for the leaderboards. He has a chance to become the first major league hitter to bat at least .390 with at least a .550 slugging percentage since Cody Bellinger’s MVP season in 2019. The team’s best overall hitter, José Ramírez, is up to his usual tricks, homering on Saturday, and Josh Naylor has provided better-than-adequate protection this season with 19 home runs. Naylor’s brother, Bo, homered on Saturday, as did Daniel Schneemann. Overall, the Guardians are led by their pitching, with the No. 6 pitching staff in MLB by ERA.

The Blue Jays’ lefty is coming off his worst start of the season, a game in which he allowed four home runs in four innings during a 7-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox. In general, Kikuchi does best when he is able to keep the ball on the ground. All seven of his quality starts have featured more groundballs than fly balls. In Kikuchi’s three rough starts in his last five games, he has featured a fly ball-to-groundball ratio of 35-to-13. Clearly, there is a pattern here. Like most Toronto pitchers, Kikuchi has struggled to win games due to lagging run support, but his stuff and execution remain well above-average, with a 94.8-mph fastball that ranks in the 74th percentile and a the lowest walk rate of his career at just 5.6%. Kikuchi has yet to face the Guardians this season, but he has typically pitched well against them, with a 2.45 ERA in five starts while holding Cleveland hitters to a .514 OPS. José Ramirez has had success against Kikuchi, with two home runs and a 1.047 OPS against him in 14 at-bats, but Ramirez has had success against a lot of pitchers.

Cleveland’s 26-year-old right-hander looked like an emerging star in 2022, when he had a 2.96 ERA in 31 starts, but has struggled to replicate that success since. McKenzie has struggled mightily with his command at times this season, including in his last start, when he allowed a leadoff walk in each of the first three innings and had a pitch count of 59 after recording just one out in the third. The Blue Jays, no doubt, will have a game plan of remaining patient until McKenzie can prove he can throw enough strikes to pitch deep into the game. The lack of command hasn’t allowed McKenzie to get into counts to throw his breaking balls, a curveball and slider, which clearly are the best part of his repertoire. The run value on those two breaking balls rank in the 98th percentile. The problem is, hitters have nothing to fear from a 91 mph fastball, which ranks in the 8th percentile, meaning he isn’t often in favorable counts to throw them. These Toronto hitters haven’t seen much of McKenzie, which could be a bit of an edge for the pitcher. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is the only Jay hitter with more than five at-bats off him and he has a .777 OPS in those at-bats.

Like a lot of North America, Cleveland has been stuck in a heat wave, but thunderstorms could relieve that on Sunday. Light rain is expected to end in the morning, but more rain could arrive in the afternoon. Temperatures are expected to be around 25 C, with gusty winds as high as 30 km/h blowing out to right field.

Cleveland has an impressive record of 34-15 in games in which it was the moneyline favourite. That’s a 69.4% hit rate. At -115 or shorter, that percentage goes up to 71.1%. Toronto is 6-21 as the underdog this season. That is a 22.2% hit rate. No real trends as far as the over-under here, as Cleveland has been slightly prone to hit overs (36-34-4) while Toronto is slightly under-prone (33-42-1)

Kwan is particularly dangerous when the sun is out. He has recorded at least one hit in each of his last 10 day games. Ramirez tends to feast on lower-tier teams from the Jays’ division. Against AL East teams with losing records, Ramirez has hit a home runs in Cleveland’s last four home games. Guerrero has homered in three of Toronto’s last eight games against Cleveland.

Neither pitcher has been particularly sharp of late and Cleveland’s offence appears to be locked-in. While you never know what you’re going to get from Jays’ hitters, McKenzie is erratic enough with his command to expect plenty of baserunners. The over-under feels a bit low, so lean over (-110). The game means far more to Toronto than it does the Guardians, who now are sitting on a 7.5-game lead in the AL Central. Also, while both pitchers have struggled of late, Kikuchi has far more impressive underlying metrics on the season. He is, quite frankly, the better pitcher. Consider taking the Jays (-105) as slight underdogs here.