With so much afternoon baseball this Memorial Day, there isn’t a lot of late night action on the diamond this evening. In fact, there’s only a single game set to start past 9:00 p.m. ET and it’s a meeting between the Angels and the Yankees.
After winning eight contests in a row, Los Angeles cooled over the weekend, dropping back-to-back tilts with the lowly Marlins. Conversely, New York righted the ship on Saturday and Sunday with victories following a narrow loss in Colorado on Friday, scoring 18 runs at Coors Field in the process. The Yankees are now leading the AL East by a commanding six games.
Will the Bronx Bombers stay hot? Let’s break it all down with some odds and lines on the DraftKings Sportsbook.
Yankees vs. Angels prediction, preview
Let’s just say this isn’t exactly a pitching matchup that you’re going to tell your grandchildren about. Let’s start with Jack Kochanowicz. The lanky 24-year-old has managed three quality starts in his last six outings, and his strikeout numbers look slightly better in May, but in general, this is an archetype of pitcher that I try and avoid putting money on. At least in a positive sense.
Across 53.2 innings of work, Kochanowicz is in possession of a 5.03 ERA and a 5.64 FIP. He does throw hard and he induces a fair share of ground balls, but when opponents are elevating the right-hander, they’re doing so with great success. To wit, Kochanowicz is allowing 1.51 home runs per nine and a 9.9% barrel rate. Add in an 11.4% walk rate and you can start to understand why the former third-round pick maybe hasn’t had all that many impressive starts at the MLB level. I doubt that tide begins to turn tonight, either. Not with the Yankees in town, the club that currently leads baseball in ISO (.212), wOBA (.356) and wRC+ (131).
Pitching for New York will be Ryan Yarbrough, the soft-tossing southpaw who is now with his third different team in the AL East. Yarbrough is just 33-years-old — he might as well be 50 — and he’s directly on the heels of his best outing of 2025. Last Wednesday against the Rangers, in only his third start of the season, Yarbrough tossed five innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts. It’s the most strikeouts Yarbrough’s had in a single appearance since all the way back in July of 2022. The LHP is surrendering 1.53 opponent long balls per nine, yet a microscopic barrel rate (3.7%) and hard hit rate (23.5%) suggest Yarbrough’s actually done quite well keeping opposing hitters off balance. The veteran has been an unsung hero in the Yankees’ recent hot streak.
Yankees vs. Angels pick, best bet
I have a tremendous amount of faith in New York on Monday night. The Yankees have won 56.0% of their road games so far this season — the fifth-best mark in all of baseball. Yarbrough has also just been rock solid and I think that trend continues in a matchup with an Angels lineup that has absolutely awful numbers versus lefties. Coming into tonight’s action, Los Angeles is hitting .216 with an 80 wRC+ within the split.
Best Bet: Yankees -1.5 (-112)
New York should have little issue putting up a bunch of runs against the struggling Kochanowicz.
Strong Lean: Cody Bellinger 2+ Total Bases (+105)
Bellinger is hitting .333 with a 180 wRC+ in May. Kochanowicz is allowing a .416 wOBA to opposing LHBs.
