It’s Thursday, and that not only means the weekend is around the corner, it means we’ve got plenty of baseball on the docket. I’ve taken a look at the entire card and I think I’ve picked out three winners.
Here are my best MLB bets to consider on DraftKings Sportsbook.
All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and all odds subject to change.
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Brewers -1.5 (-115)
Why sure, I’ll go ahead and take the indomitable Freddy Peralta against a Pirates team which he just handled a few starts ago and now is missing its top bat in Adam Frazier.
I rarely take run line bets, but this one’s pretty worth it. Peralta has remained one of the best pitchers in baseball with gaudy strikeout numbers and very few hits against him. The only way you can hurt Peralta is by taking pitches and drawing walks, but the Pirates really haven’t done that lately with a 7.3% walk rate over the last two weeks and a high 48.5% swing rate.
Though the Pirates haven’t necessarily had issues striking out, they don’t profile very well here against Peralta. I think that, mixed with a Brewers offense with a .774 OPS over the last 14 days going against a shaky Chad Kuhl, is a recipe for a big win.
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Boston Red Sox
Over 10.5 (-115)
Speaking of OPS over the last two weeks, there is only one team hotter than the Blue Jays with their mark of .829, and that’s the Washington Nationals. Toronto is mashing the baseball, posting a 40.4% hard-hit rate over that span with an impressive 77.7% contact rate. This team is not striking out, and instead putting almost everything back in play with interest.
This is a matchup between Hyun Jin Ryu and Eduardo Rodriguez — two lefties — which means it’s time to address how both of these teams hit southpaws. The Red Sox were one of the league’s very best teams against lefties all season long, but over the last month or so have really faded in that department, dropping all the way to eighth in wRC+. That happens to be one spot behind the Blue Jays, who have maintained their hot hitting against lefties.
Ryu has been very sporadic this season, as has Rodriguez. I would normally say I’m willing to fade the Red Sox against a lefty and go with the better offense, but I’m very concerned about the prospects of Ryu, who’s given up a boatload of hard-hit balls, facing this Red Sox team which keeps impressing in the exit velocity department. I’m going to take the over.
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Tampa Bay +73 No Brainer
As long as Tampa Bay doesn’t lose by 74 points, you win! One bet per customer. See the DraftKings Sportsbook Promos page for more details!
Oakland Athletics vs. Los Angeles Angels
Over 9 (-115)
It’s a tale as old as time — a sinker-baller who allows too much hard contact going against a contact-happy team. That’s what we’ve got on Thursday night in Los Angeles, where the Angels will host the A’s.
The best part about this matchup is it involves one of my favorite pitchers to fade, Frankie Montas. The former highly-touted righty has seen his hard-hit rate balloon to 45.3% this year thanks to a sinker that’s stayed elevated and yielded some rockets off the bat. He’s not necessarily striking out a low number of hitters, but the Angels should be immune just a bit to the punchouts considering they rank eighth over the last month in contact rate.
The Angels’ problem has been a lack of power, but with Montas on the hill that should be solved. They should see better results from putting the ball in play.
That’s great news for Los Angeles, but the bad news is Dylan Bundy will be making an emergency start here. If you don’t recall, things got so bad earlier this year that he was moved to the bullpen, where he continued to have a bout with contact. That special strikeout stuff we saw in 2020 just isn’t there anymore, and that’s good for the A’s, who have a ton of exit velocity machines in their order.
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I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is jetsfan196) and I may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.