Friday May 1st MLB Betting Picks: Top Predictions for Today’s Games

May has arrived!

Let’s hope that means unfettered nice weather here in the Northeast as my Wednesday pick got rained out. And how about we see that in the Midwest, too. Here are today’s MLB Picks.

Season Record 15-12-1, +0.52 Units

Royals at Mariners

We have a matchup of two aces off to kind of bumpy starts representing two teams that are not exactly fast out of the gate.

Cole Ragans has an ugly 5.00 ERA and 1.48 WHIP for the Kansas City Royals thus far, mostly thanks to his uncharacteristically high 15.7% BB%. He’s never been the greatest at avoiding the free pass, but that’s a huge bump from his 9.5% career level. There’s a bit of a mitigating circumstance here however as Ragans took a comebacker to the thumb in Cleveland on April 8 and tried to stay in the game but lost all command and had to leave in the first inning. He didn’t miss a start, but walked four and then eight (!) in his next two outings, so I have to wonder whether the thumb still impacted his delivery.

No way to know, but in his last outing he was spectacular, striking out 11 vs. no walks in six innings vs. the Los Angeles Angels.

Bryan Woo has overall better numbers with a 3.86 ERA and 1.06 WHIP. But it’s a bit of a dip from his 2.94 ERA 0.94 WHIP breakout last year. His K% has dipped from 27.1% to 19.1% and it's hard to explain why. His velo is actually up a shade and his Stuff and Location scores remain similarly excellent. The St. Louis Cardinals torched Woo for four homers, nine hits and seven earned runs in just three innings in his last outing.

One game does not make a trend, but these two could not enter the game on more divergent paths. Plus the Seattle Mariners have looked pretty lousy vs. lefties this season, slashing just .204/.291/.332 with an 81 wRC+. So give me the Royals here and we’ll stick with the F5 to make it mostly a play on the SP matchup.

Royals F5 (+130 BetMGM)

Blue Jays at Twins

Twins F5 -0.5 (+116 FanDuel)

OK, quite the difference here as we have two non-aces going; Patrick Corbin for the Toronto Blue Jays vs. Simeon Woods-Richardson for the Minnesota Twins. Corbin has looked a bit better on the surface, 3.72 ERA and 1.24 WHIP through four starts and 19.1 IP, vs. a 6.30 ERA and 1.70 WHIP for SWR. But at least one of the ERA estimators actually think SWR is a bit less bad, 4.80 xERA vs. 5.87 xERA for Corbin.

One thing that’s almost a guarantee is that SWR will need his fielders to help him out as he has just an 11% K% and the Jays are the second toughest team for righties to strike out at 19.4% K%. I’m not expecting all that much from him, really just that he can keep up with Corbin, who’s really here to eat some innings for the Jays and keep the game within range.