Kick back and enjoy the day baseball. We’ll only be focusing on the evening run of games. Not a whole lot there, but what we’ve got is fun—Athletics vs. Yankees, Mariners vs. Blue Jays, Diamondbacks vs. Dodgers, and Guardians vs. Phillies. That said, below are my three favorite baseball bets today based on my game predictions and previews.
Links to DraftKings Sportsbook provided for all bets below!
Blue Jays +1.5 (-115) at Mariners
To be honest, this is all about betting against Bryce Miller’s current form. I see no indication, really, why we should believe the bounceback starts today. In all advanced pitching metrics, Miller ranks below the 52nd percentile in all but barrel rate (88th). But what good’s a 4.1% barrel rate when you’re giving up a hard hit 44.1% of the time (29th percentile—woof)?
The Mariners are rolling into some fine form of their own, but the Blue Jays’s offense is positively regressing, too. They’ve scored no fewer than five runs in their last eight games, and have scored eight, six, and six runs respectively on their three-game win streak headed into this evening’s game.
Miller’s not exactly trending down, but he’s a bit mired in a performance-level plateau that leans more toward mediocrity than many of his fantasy managers hoped on draft day. And, in terms of today’s betting market, I think getting a run-and-a-half for the Jays is great value.
Mariners vs. Blue Jays o8.0 runs (-120)
For all the reasons listed above re. the Jays’ lineup against Bryce Miller—Seattle’s starter today—I felt it was also worth checking out the run total, here. There’s plenty of value on the over. Perhaps I’m saying that because the scoreboard across the MLB last night. Go check it out for yourself. It was Nerf type stuff out there.
I mentioned, but didn’t exactly get into the statistics about, the Mariners’ offense finding form a bit. A lot of that is, quietly, Julio Rodriguez, who has a .906 OPS over his last seven games and and .857 OPS over the last fifteen days. It’s been steady and not whatsoever flashy—sort of quintessentially un-J-Rod-like—but that’s no matter.
Seattle hasn’t scored fewer than five runs in their last six games. If you expand to that eight-game sample size I used for the Jays above, you do get a game in which the Jays scored only two—that was against a peculiarly-suffocating Patrick Corbin. You also get a game in which they hung 13 on the Rangers, too. I’d call that even.
Eight seems like a value—no?
Phillies vs. Guardians o7.0 runs (-120)
I know Wheeler’s on the mound, but this still seems crazy low. Over their last ten games, the Phillies have outscored their opponents by 13 runs. Cleveland’s +19 across that same timespan.
These haven’t been two offenses that have yet clashed against each other in a single game this interleague series—the Guardians won 6-0 in Game 1, and the Phillies won 7-1 in Game 2. But with the Sunday Night Baseball lights beaming bright in Ohio, and the Phillies having found some synergy with Bryson Stott at the top of the order, I’d expect Philadelphia to get close to this number on their own once more. Their average over their last ten games? .287!
It’ll all be a problem for Luis Ortiz’s 1.42 WHIP. Wheeler’s been dominant, but he’s given up two runs in all of his four starts headed into tonight’s game. This game feels like 6-4, 7-5, something like that.
