Best MLB Bets Today: Two Plays for Phillies-Blue Jays and Brewers-Athletics

The World Cup starts tomorrow and the Knicks go for a 3-1 lead tonight so there’s plenty of high profile sporting events on tap.

But hey, it’s wall to wall baseball today so let’s try to get back in the black with some MLB picks.

Season Record 33-30-1, -0.23Units

Phillies at Blue Jays

Jesus Luzardo Under 17.5 Outs Recorded (+140 BetMGM)

Bets are supposed to be about the price, right? Well, that’s exactly my angle here as I’m a fan of Luzardo as a pitcher. Especially when he’s on his game as he’s often an ace and you wonder why he can’t do that every game. Well the fact is he can’t as he’ll toss a gem one outing and then another and then get lit up in the next one. It has produced an uneven season. He has an 18.9% K-BB% which ranks 22nd among 66 qualified pitchers but he has an ERA of 4.56 which ranks 56th. He’s gone 73 IP in his 13 starts, so that’s about 5.5 per outing

The Jays are a modestly subpar offense with a 96 wRC+ on the season, but they’re on the pesky side. They have the 2nd lowest K% in the league at 19.3% so there’s a lot of balls in play. And that does not bode particularly well for Luzardo. He’s a heavy groundball pitcher and at -6 If Fielding Runs saved the Phillies have one of their worst team defenses in MLB.

The Jays absolutely torched Luzardo in their meeting last year with 9 hits and 8 runs in just 2.1 IP. I doubt we see a repeat of that, but they may give him a tough time again today so let’s try the under on his outs prop with a nice plus money cushion.

Brewers at Athletics*

Under 14.5 Runs (-102 BetMGM)

Again, the asterisk is to remember the game will take place in Vegas. 14.5 is of course a monstrous total, but it's not unjustified.

The Brewers alone got there on Monday and the A’s just missed as the Crew won 15-14 in extra innings. It was a little tamer last night as the A’s took the game 7-5. It’s a leap of faith here, but it’s still tough to get to 15 runs combined, even in this heat and altitude.

Part of it is thanks to the pitching matchup, which on paper looks very weak. In the Brewers case there’s some truth behind it as there’s not a lot in Brandon Sproat’s data that suggests he’s much better than his 6.17 ERA. But he is actually. His 12.1% BB% is awful, but he also has a 24.1% K%. His 4.45 SIERA is bad, but not 6+ ERA bad.

A’s starter Jack Perkins on the other hand is considerably better than his 6.19 ERA as he’s got a 20.8% K-BB% with elite contact suppression skills. His xERA is just 3.30. Now most of that came as a reliever as he’s in the process of converting to the rotation. But the metrics look encouraging so far as he’s gone 8.1 IP in his two extended outings and he’s got 13 K’s vs. just 2 BB’s. Let’s close our eyes and take the under here.