The Blue Jays are catching the Yankees in somewhat of a favourable spot here, and they will certainly need it as New York has played to a 28-16 record on the road, while the Jays are just 18-19 at home.

Both teams faced rain delays Wednesday, but the Jays played just one inning and used zero bullpen arms. The Yankees meanwhile waited several hours to complete their matchup versus the Mets, and after they were finished being pummelled 12-2, likely were not resting at the hotel until 3 or 4 am.

Carlos Rodon (3.86 ERA, 88 and 2/3 IP) will take on Jose Berrios (3.43 ERA, 97 IP) in the series opener.

Let’s dive into the odds and relevant game notes for Thursday’s matchup between the Yankees and Blue Jays:

The Yankees have fallen into their first meaningful stretch of lesser play this season, as they own a record of just 2-8 over the last ten games and enter this series on a three-game losing skid. They feature a fairly notable injury report, which includes position players Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo, and some quality arms.

Carlos Rodon looks to be a slightly lesser pitcher than his 3.86 ERA suggests. He has thrown to a 4.40 xFIP, and a 4.59 xFIP so far this season. Over the last five starts, Rodon has been hard-hit 43% of the time and holds a strikeout rate of 23%. In those starts, he holds an ERA of 5.86, which is inflated largely based on his last two horrid outings.

Should Rodon struggle the Jays could be more successful than usual versus the Yankees bullpen, which features three or four arms that will likely be unavailable.

In the month of June, the Yankees offence owns a wRC+ of 113 versus right-handed pitching and has seen their strikeout rate spike to 24.5%. Over the last two weeks they own a wRC+ of 95 versus righties and have struck out 25.4% of the time.

The Blue Jays enter this series with an ugly 9-14 record in June, which has all but ended any hopes of a Wildcard berth. Fangraphs offers Toronto a 4.8% chance of securing a playoff berth this season, and you would think at this point meaningful changes to the management staff should be on the horizon.

While the offence continues to wear much of the blame, the form of the pitching staff has been far more of the problem than we have typically seen over the last season and a half. In June, Blue Jays’ pitchers own an ERA of 4.37, which is the 12th-highest mark in MLB in that span. Relievers in particular have struggled to an ERA of 4.45.

The Blue Jays have hit to a wRC+ of 93 over the last 30 days, with a K-rate of 19.3% and a hard-hit rate of 30.9%.

Daulton Varsho remained out of the lineup Wednesday’s versus Boston and is questionable for tonight’s game with a back injury.

Jose Berrios has pitched to a 4.77 xERA this season and has not had overly convincing underlying results of late either. Berrios has been allowed an xBA of .301 over his last five starts and has struck out only 12% of batters faced in that span.

The Yankees are obviously the far better of these two teams and will find their way out of this lull moving forward. This looks like a dicey spot to count on New York getting right though, as they got in late last night and have a starter who’s been in awful form on the mound.

My lean would certainly be with the Jays at +115 simply because of how concerning Rodon’s recent form has been. Toronto should be able to hit him well, despite their lowly results against LHP. As awful as things have been for the Jays, they are still averaging 4.18 runs over the last 15 games, with strong underlying results at the plate.

At -130 I think there is value backing the Jays offense to be productive tonight, and not worry about fading the Yankees lineup posting the big offensive night it might be due for.