Friday MLB Best Bets: Why the Giants and Dodgers Have Value

We’ve made it through the week, happy Friday!

Let’s enjoy the weekend with a couple MLB Pick winners from the late window.

Season Record 19-14-1, +2.53 Units

Pittsburgh Pirates at San Francisco Giants

Giants F5 -.5 (+114 FanDuel)

It’s a SP battle between one of the easiest names to pronounce in MLB (Robbie Ray) vs. one of the toughest (Carmen Mlodzinski).

Oh, and there’s also quite the contrast in how they’ve pitched lately.

The Giants’ Ray has turned back the clock a bit as his 2.95 ERA is his lowest since his Cy Young season of 2021 in Toronto. He’s not fanning guys like he used to as his K% is 25.5%, down from the low 30’s levels of his heyday. But he’s also throwing more strikes as his 8.9% BB% is decent for him and he’s controlling contact well so far with an 87.4 EV allowed (72nd percentile) and 33% HardHit% (79th percentile). It’s mostly in the air, but that works in his spacious home park

“Mlod” is a converted starter and it's been a little bumpy so far, at least as far as the bottom line numbers go. Through four starts he had a 1.77 ERA but with a meh 13.4% K-BB%. Well he improved that mark to 22.4% in his last three starts but at the expense of ferocious contact in the form of a 19.4% Barrel%. How high is that whole lineup? Byron Buxton has a 19% Barrel% and Matt Olson is at 20.2%. It has resulted in a 9.22 ERA and 1.77 WHIP.

Now you might say the Giants are the least equipped team in MLB to take advantage of a guy serving up meatballs, and you would be correct.

They have just 23 homers, the fewest in MLB. But they added a couple interesting bats this week in Bryce Eldridge and Jesus Rodriguez and they’ve ticked up a bit overall. I think they have a major edge on the mound here so let’s try to isolate that and roll with them at home on the F5.

Atlanta Braves at Los Angeles Dodgers

Dodgers F5 (-104 FanDuel)

It’s not often you can get the Dodgers at a non insane price.

Well, there’s a very good reason for it here as they face an excellent Braves team and their ace Chris Sale tonight. Sale has been lights out fantastic so far with a 2.14 ERA and 0.90 WHIP that are both a shade better than the numbers he put up in his 2024 Cy Young campaign. His 29.9% K% is 91st percentile. Oh and the Braves are smacking the ball lately despite Ronald Acuña Jr. landing on the IL and Michael Harris II in and out lately managing injuries.

So why Dodgers? Well I think today’s starter Emmet Sheehan is getting a bit of a discount on account of his lousy overall numbers (5.32 ERA, 1.33 WHIP). Under the hood he’s pitching very well, especially the last 3 starts where he has a 32.8% K% vs. just a 4.5% BB% and an ace-like SIERA of 2.51. What’s interesting and perhaps encouraging is that his velo has dipped a shade from early in the season and he’s actually throwing much better as he’s now getting nice plus results from his slider.

Right here right now this sure looks like a preview of the NLCS. Let’s go with the two-time defending champs.