With the hectic clutter of a 162-game baseball schedule, it’s hard for any one game to stand out. But on this Thursday full of day games, only one game will see first pitch close to sunset: the New York Mets’ clash against the Atlanta Braves at Citi Field, which will start at 7:10 p.m. ET and be televised on MLB Network.
The game is effectively a tossup, with the Braves listed at -106 on the Moneyline and the Mets at -115, and the run total is set for 8.5. Below, I’ve laid out my favorite same-game parlay to help you get excited for this clash between the second- and third-place teams in the NL East.
Best Same Game Parlay for Braves at Mets
Atlanta Braves Moneyline
Atlanta is in hot form, having won 10 of its last 15 games against some difficult opponents, including six games against New York and three against the 45-36 Milwaukee Brewers. In large part, that has to do with Ronald Acuña Jr., the 2023 NL MVP. Acuña hasn’t missed a beat since coming back from the torn ACL that ended his 2024 season prematurely; through 30 games (132 plate appearances) he’s slashing .383/.500/.682 with nine homers, 18 RBI’s, and nearly as many walks as strikeouts. He’ll probably cool off eventually — since 2000, only Barry Bonds and pandemic-season Juan Soto have ever finished with an OPS better than Acuña’s current 1.182 — but in warm, dry conditions in Queens, I like his chances of staying hot.
Plus, I trust Grant Holmes just a little bit more than I do Griffin Canning. After a rough outing at the end of April in which he conceded six runs in a loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, Holmes has thrown 57 innings at a 3.32 ERA, never giving up more than four runs in any of his 10 outings and generating 12.9 whiffs per game. Canning, meanwhile, has had a miserable last three starts, conceding 17 hits and 13 earned runs in 14.2 innings to balloon his ERA from 2.90 to 3.91.
Ronald Acuña Jr. 2+ Hits
I doubt you need any reminder as to who Acuña is or what he’s capable of, but he’s had multiple hits in 13 of his 30 games this season, which would imply that the appropriate odds for him to record two or more hits are +130 when they’re actually +170. He most recently did so in a two-hit performance in the opening game of the series on Monday, the final game of a streak of four consecutive multi-hit games. Over the last two games, he’s barely had the opportunity, recording three at-bats and two walks in each.
However, Canning is the perfect pitcher for him to get a pair of hits against. Canning’s expected batting average against is .261, squarely below league-average, and he induces whiffs at just a 53rd percentile clip. The 29-year-old also throws four-seam fastballs and sliders on a combined two-thirds of his pitches, and this season, Acuña is hitting .393 against fastballs and .294 against sliders. Canning’s slider is mostly dangerous because he generates a 33.3% whiff percentage with the pitch, but Acuña has swung and missed at sliders only 22.2% of the time. The biggest risk is that Canning, who has a 19th-percentile walk rate, issues multiple free passes to the Venezuelan.
Griffin Canning 5+ Strikeouts Thrown
Canning only strikes out batters at a 45th-percentile clip, but five strikeouts isn’t an incredibly high bar. Although he hasn’t reached that number in any of his past three starts, he has every time he has completed the sixth inning. While there’s no guarantee that he will finish the sixth — he hasn’t yet in any of the starts he’s made on four days’ rest — the Mets haven’t had a day off since Monday, June 16 and won’t have another one until Monday, June 30. No New York starter lasted more than five innings in any of the first three games of the series, so Carlos Mendoza might push Canning if he’s pitching decently. The Braves are a decent team to rack up strikeouts against, given that they pair an above-average swing percentage with an above-average strikeout rate.
