MLB Picks Today: Brewers vs Rays and Reds vs Pirates Predictions

Happy April 1st, or as we Mets fans call it, Sidd Finch Day. 

Let’s look at a couple MLB picks for today that hopefully don’t make me the April Fool.

Season Record 1-2-1, -1.17 Units

Rays at Brewers

Brewers ML (-142 FanDuel)

If there’s one pitcher in MLB whose arsenal sometimes looks too good to be true, it’s Jacob Misiorowski who gets the ball for Milwaukee today. He cranked it up to an average velocity of 99.2 last season, with a Stuff+ score on his fastball of 118. He had a 32% K% and 29.7% Whiff% (80th percentile). Oh and he struck out 11 (55% K%, an insane 58.1% Whiff%) in his season debut last week. When he’s on, he’s virtually untouchable.

But alas, there are caveats. Those 11 K’s came vs. a White Sox lineup that has some power, but an awful lot of swing and miss. And the big issue for The Miz is his command and control. He walked three Sox (15%) and last season had an 11.4% BB%. Not great.

Still, I like him to carve up a Rays lineup that has started out pretty well with a 123 wRC+, but that’s mostly against lousy Cardinals pitching. Junior Caminero is a monster, but he’s getting pitched around so far as he has a 26% BB% early on. Yandy Diaz and Jonathan Aranda are very good, but beyond that, there’s nothing much scary here.

The Rays start Drew Rasmussen, and he’s always good for a relatively short but excellent outing. He gave up 1 run in 5IP in his opener vs. the Cards, but with just 2 K’s. I just feel like there’s more chance the Brewers get to him as their bats have come out blazing this season. They lead MLB with a 150 wRC+, though again, it was mostly vs. the White Sox. It's a deeper group than the Rays and I like them in this spot at home.

Pirates at Reds

Reds ML (+140 Caesars)

It’s pretty safe to assume Paul Skenes’ disaster of an opener was a one-off fluke. So why fade him here? Nice plus odds for the home Reds, and while the Pirates look like they’ll be better this year, it hasn’t manifested itself just yet. 

The Reds starter today Andrew Abbott continues to produce excellent bottom line numbers despite mediocre skills metrics. He shut out the Red Sox for 6 innings with just 4 K’s (16.7% K%, 8.7% SwStr%). It’s just more of the same for Abbott as he has a 3.37 career ERA vs. a 4.41 SIERA. I’ll back Abbott here to at least hold his own for a day.