You might not even be able to take a breath from all the wild college basketball action to carve out your relaxing baseball time tonight. Soon enough, we’ll be cracking our windows, watching the checkered curtains nudge in the twilight breeze as we turn our old radios to the Cubs game. Not yet, though. Far too many frosts—fewer and fewer, still—to get through before our baseball betting turns to home run parlays. For today’s best betting card, we’re going for today’s best baseball matchups. And, no, we’re not going to talk about the Yankees’ new torpedo bats.
Links to DraftKings Sportsbook provided for all bets below!
Cincinnati Reds ML (-102) vs. Texas Rangers
It’s Kumar Rocker day for the Rangers, which means: *throws hands up wildly so as to suggest the vast and galactic range of possibilities re. what Rocker’s stuff yields from the Reds’ bats*. There were the eight strikeouts across four-plus innings to end Spring Training, sure. But it was otherwise a rocky February and March for Rocker, whose story (look it up if you’re unfamiliar) could sure use a sterling start to 2025.
Alas, I don’t think I’m going to back that play, even though the Rangers bats are all along the positive spectrum of waking up, having awoken, or swinging with the zip of an espresso shot. Rocker will likely have a short leash today anyways; he threw fewer than 50 innings in 2024, so the Rangers are unlikely to stretch a potential post-hype blue chip asset in a pre-April away game.
Brady Singer, on the other hand, carries with him a solid 2025 Spring Training pedigree onto the bump tonight for the Reds—18 Ks over 12+ innings pitched. They stretched him out plenty—nearly eighty pitches—in his last start. So as long as we don’t have a Singer blowup of yore, it’s possible he could wear down the Rangers offense with a quality start.
The Reds have four bats doing promising work right now, too: Matt McClain, Christian Encarnacion-Strand (fingers crossed it lasts this time?), Elly De La Cruz, and Jeimer Candelario all have opening-weekend OPSes of .600+. Which, like—I know it stinks that I’m citing a .600+ OPS line as promising.
But it’s not even April. Give me the home team and the starter whose more stretched out.
Jonathan Aranda 2+ Total Bases (+170)
For the DFS dabblers amongst the wagering audience, my colleague Zach Thompson wrote up Aranda in his MLB DFS Values article for today:
Mlodzinski is converting to be a full-time starter this season but is still only a stretched-out opener at this point. The Pirates bullpen gave up three walk-off wins to the Marlins in their season-opening series, so Misner and the Rays are a good lineup to get exposure to on Monday. Jonathan Aranda ($2,900) is another good option as a bargain in this matchup.
And, indeed, there’s plenty of value in Aranada’s betting lines, too. He only has six at-bats on the season so far (by virtue of his right-handed-pitching platoon), but he’s cranked three of them into extra-base hits. We’re certainly not taking this plus-money bet because we’re demanding another XBH. It’s entirely possible Mlodzinski pitches him carefully, and Aranda could walk out of this game with a free pass or two.
I like the value in the +170 against a pitcher who one of DKN’s brightest baseball minds thinks represents extreme risk for Pittsburgh, so Aranda gets my backing against Mlod.
Oakland A’s ML (+110) vs. Chicago Cubs
Why not the A’s this year? They were a sleeper team coming into the season for many folks based on a lot of their advanced hitting metrics to close out the 2024 season. Tyler Soderstrom—three home runs in his last two games—sure wants folks to believe it’s sustainable. But, mostly, it’s been the starting pitching: the A’s rank, so far, first in the MLB in ERA (1.59) and fourth in BAAA (.175). Microscopically-limited sample size for a 162 game season, but still. The two wins so far have been a confluence of pleasant-surprise pitching and ascending offense.
That said, We’re not thrilled that Joey Estes is pitching against a kinda-sorta-clicking Chicago Cubs lineup tonight, especially in Sacramento; his 5.01 ERA in 2024 is fairly representative of what we should expect from him this season. I’d be surprised if he’s still the fifth starter for the A’s come June.
But there’s something to be said for momentum being its own reward for baseball teams this early in the year. It’s not yet April, and in half the country, you still need to warm up your car for four minutes before you expect to drive it anywhere safely, or without freezing. It’s extended Spring Training, basically, and the Cubs just suffered a deflating and lineup-turning 10-6 defeat to the Arizona Diamondbacks that saw both teams hang 35+ at-bats.
I expect the Cubs lineup to be a little funky tonight after yesterday’s grind. A’s get to 3-2 at home tonight.
