The Cubs Dodgers series to start the 2025 season concludes Wednesday morning, and I have some bets for this game. It’ll feature the MLB debut of Roki Sasaki against Cubs starter Justin Steele, who was a low-key Cy Young candidate last season. Let’s get into some picks for this game, which is scheduled to start at 6:10 a.m. ET.
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Chicago Cubs vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
The Pick: Roki Sasaki under 13.5 outs recorded -105
We haven’t seen much of Sasaki at the major league level yet. The Dodgers only used him for seven innings during Spring Training, topping out at 41 pitches last week. I don’t imagine the Dodgers are looking to stretch him out much more in this game on Wednesday. I think it’s reasonable to think he’ll be around 50-55 pitches on Wednesday, which makes the under on his outs total interesting. It’s a small number but for him to go over, he’ll need to record 4.2 innings, which is more than double what he’s thrown during Spring Training.
The Cubs are also a patient team. Last season, they were sixth in the league in BB% and third against righties. With so little to go off of with Sasaki, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cubs aren’t particularly eager to start hacking away early and often. This has me going under Sasaki’s out total for his MLB debut Wednesday morning.
If you want to see the betting splits for this game, be sure to visit the DraftKings Network betting splits page to see how the public is betting!
Dodgers Team Total over 4.5 runs -110
I talked about this a little bit in yesterday’s article and that sentiment carries over to today. The Dodgers are going to be a major problem for left-handed pitchers. Granted, Shota Imanaga kept the Dodgers bat quiet in his short stint on Tueday, but there were some LOUD outs by the Dodgers. Against Steele, the Dodgers will mainly see two pitches, a fastball and slider. Last season, Steele threw those pitches a combined 89.3% of the time. Assuming Freddie Freeman is out again, the expected Dodgers lineup slashed .285/.353/.509 with a .370 wOBA against fastballs and .255/.316/.489 with a .344 against sliders.
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