Over the course of baseball’s 162-game regular season, there’s not much of a reason to overreact to games that take place in the middle of June. But if you take just a two-week sample size, the Cincinnati Reds are World Series contenders and the Minnesota Twins will pick first overall next summer. Cincinnati has won eight of its last 10 games, including last night’s series opener, while Minnesota has dropped nine of its last 11.
In tonight’s contest, the Reds will start Nick Lodolo, while the Twins will send Bailey Ober to the hill.
Let’s break down this matchup with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Twins at Reds prediction, preview
To be fair to Minnesota, its string of losses has come at amid a pretty difficult stretch of its schedule — it lost two of three tightly contested games against the then-hot Toronto Blue Jays, got blown out twice by the heating up Texas Rangers, and got swept by the AL West-leading Houston Astros. The Twins’ offense has still been fine, posting the league’s ninth-best OPS so far in June, but their pitching staff has offered a 5.88 ERA, the worst in baseball. Ober has pitched twice this month, giving up a combined 12 earned runs in 11.2 innings to balloon his ERA from 3.48 to 4.40, and only Joe Ryan hasn’t had a true blow-up start this month.
Minnesota can’t be overly disappointed in its performance in the first game. David Festa struggled with his control but mostly limited the damage, pitching 3.2 innings and giving up four runs (two earned) on two hits and three walks, and four of the five relievers who followed him managed not to give up a run. The exception was Brock Stewart, who conceded a go-ahead, two-run double in the bottom of the sixth inning that proved to be the last runs of the game. Four of the offense’s five runs scored via homer; Byron Buxton, who looks likely to make his second career All-Star team, hit a solo shot in the first and Harrison Bader added a three-run bomb in the sixth. The offense should be fine again tonight and can win as long as Ober can induce chases, though Cincinnati does that at the league’s second-lowest rate.
Lodolo, too, has elite control, ranking in the 85th percentile at inducing chases and the 92nd in walk percentage, but unlike Ober, he ranks in the middle tertile in the other 11 Statcast categories. His changeup ranks in the 96th percentile by run value, and it’s no surprise that he’s increased its usage from 10.4% in 2022 to 22.9% this season, with hitters posting just a .251 wOBA against it. Lodolo did get roughed up in his last start, conceding six runs on five hits in 3.1 innings of work, but all the damage was the result of one bad changeup. Otherwise, his average spin rate and velocity were actually higher on all of his pitches than they were the previous game, and I’m expecting a bounce-back tonight. The Reds’ offense has also been on fire, posting the sixth-best OPS so far in June.
Twins at Reds pick, best bet
Best Bet: Cincinnati Reds Moneyline (-131)
Although the Twins’ rough stretch will stop at some point, I’m not sure it’s going to be tonight. Ober has given up the eighth-most homers in the American League, and Great American Ballpark is the single most homer-friendly park in all of baseball. That’s a bad recipe against a team that has had the fourth-most homers this month.
Strong Lean: Elly De La Cruz O0.5 Stolen Bases (+280)
Despite being six-foot-nine, the second-tallest player in Major League Baseball, Ober’s fastball velocity ranks in just the seventh percentile, he throws changeups on nearly 30% of his pitches, and Christian Vázquez is below average at catching would-be base stealers. De La Cruz has 89th percentile sprint speed, led the league in steals last season, and is third in the NL so far in 2025.
