With the exception of a walkoff bomb, there’s little more exciting in baseball than a leadoff homer. There’s a reason why teams usually put their best batters near the top of the order — in the long run, it gets them more at-bats, and it can also send a message to start off the game hot.
That doesn’t always mean that offenses can get on the board early, though. Although offense is generally up across the league, star pitching can still out-duel star hitting, and a first-inning run is always more of a pleasant surprise than anything. Unsurprisingly, NRFI (no runs in the first inning) bets are popular at DraftKings Sportsbook. Here are my three favorites from tonight’s eight-game slate.
St. Louis Cardinals at Pittsburgh Pirates (-110)
If it were Paul Skenes on the mound for Pittsburgh, half of this bet would be a near-lock, but Andrew Heaney is a fairly solid pitcher too. This season, the veteran left-hander has thrown 86.1 innings and recorded a 4.48 ERA, which was 3.33 until he got shelled in each of his last two starts. The rough outings can be largely attributed to luck, though; his average spin rate and velocity remained constant, and they weren’t even among his worst starts of the season by expected wOBA. This season, Heaney has had a 2.81 first-inning ERA, and the Cardinals have scored just 30 first-inning runs in 85 games, the third-worst mark in the league.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde is in about the same class as Heaney, recording a 4.11 ERA this season, though he, too, is coming off of a rough outing. The 32-year-old has previously had a rough go of it in the first inning, with a 139 sOPS+, but he’s held opponents scoreless in the first inning in 10 of his 16 starts overall, including four of his last five. Fedde also kept the Pirates off the board in six innings of work on April 9, one of just four shutout outings that he has enjoyed this season. Pittsburgh ranks second-to-last in OPS overall, fourth-to-last in June, 10th-to-last at home, and 12th-to-last in the first inning.
San Diego Padres at Philadelphia Phillies (-110)
This is a free opportunity to bet on Zack Wheeler, a two-time Cy Young Award winner runner-up who ranks second in the National League this season with a 2.45 ERA. The 35-year-old has given up just four runs (two earned) over 23 innings so far in June, so he also comes into the month’s final game in strong form. He’s virtually un-hittable in the first inning, conceding zero runs in the opening frame in 14 of his 16 starts this season and owning a 0.56 ERA in the inning overall. Plus, San Diego’s offense, for all of its talent, has been pretty stagnant, scoring the league’s 10th-fewest runs in June. The Padres have been just about league-average in the first inning overall, scoring 45 runs in 83 games.
Since Wheeler is pretty much a guarantee, this bet effectively comes down to whether or not Matt Waldron can hold the Phillies scoreless in the first inning. It’ll be tough — Philadelphia has scored the second-most first-inning runs in the league this season, with 59 in 84 games — but the 28-year-old doesn’t have zero chance. He did allow 26 first-inning runs in 26 starts in 2024, but take away the five he gave up against the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 30, the four he gave up against the Arizona Diamondbacks on May 5, and the four he gave up against the Colorado Rockies on August 16, and his track record looks less atrocious. In four of his five starts this season with Triple-A El Paso, he escaped the first inning unscathed.
San Francisco Giants at Arizona Diamondbacks (-115)
In the first game of a pivotal four-game series between the NL West rivals, San Francisco will be sending one of its best starters to the mound in Logan Webb, who has led the National League with a 2.25 FIP figure this season and has ranked in the Senior Circuit’s top 10 in ERA in each of the past four seasons. Webb has kept opponents off the board in the first inning in 12 of his 17 starts this season, with a 3.71 ERA in the frame and a 65 sOPS+. Plus, while Arizona has been one of the league’s best offenses so far, it has scored just 47 first-inning runs in 83 games, the 12th-worst mark in the league. The Diamondbacks have recently hit Geraldo Perdomo, Ketel Marte, and Pavin Smith 1-2-3, and Perdomo and Smith are well below-average first-inning hitters.
The riskier part of the bet is Arizona starter Ryne Nelson, who has allowed 3.86 runs per nine innings this season, which he’s split between the rotation and the bullpen. However, most of the damage against him this season came in a June 7 loss to the Cincinnati Reds — the league’s best first-inning offense — and he’s conceded two or fewer runs in his other six starts, keeping his opponent scoreless in the opening frame five times. The Giants have struggled to find early-game offense, scoring the eighth-fewest runs and posting the fourth-worst OPS in the league in the first inning.
