It’s Thursday, and that means it’s almost the weekend! What a better way to get through this week than with another spectacularly weird slate. There are plenty of games to choose from and so many valuable lines out there that it’s hard to pick just a few. With that, here are my best MLB bets to consider on DraftKings Sportsbook.
Cincinnati Reds vs. Washington Nationals
Nationals Game 2 ML (-136)
Sonny Gray gets the ball here for the Reds, and while I generally trust him, this season has been a rocky one. Through seven starts, he’s spun just one gem, which came against the White Sox in Chicago — which isn’t an easy task. More recently, though, he’s been roughed up by the Giants and the Brewers, an average-to-above average offense and then a really crummy one.
The reason I bring up the fact that Gray normally allows runs, and has allowed three earned in two straight, is that the margins here against Stephen Strasburg are going to be slim. The Nationals have the sixth-best wRC+ in baseball over the past two weeks at 121, while the Reds have continued to backslide at the plate. Already with an edge in the offensive department, Strasburg should be able to turn it on here in his fourth start of the season. He’s been a liability in one of his three starts, so you’re taking a gamble that it doesn’t happen again, but in his other two outings he’s allowed just two hits. Judging by his track record, it’s safe to assume he’s more like those two than his one poor start.
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St. Louis Cardinals at Arizona Diamondbacks
Cardinals ML (-103)
Speaking of wRC+, the Diamondbacks rank in last place in that department over the past two weeks at 60, and have been bitten badly by the injury bug over the past month or so with so many key bats landing on the IL. While Carlos Martinez’s numbers look bad this year for the Cardinals — a 4.18 ERA and 12.1% strikeout rate — his walks have gone down, and so has his ERA in recent starts.
Martinez has allowed just seven earned runs in 19 innings this month, limiting hitters to just 15 hits as well. He’s done so against a couple of mediocre orders, and then the Cubs, which was a big prove-it spot for the veteran righty. I do believe in Martinez here against a really lackluster lineup, and on the other hand I do not believe in Matt Peacock, who profiles similarly to Martinez with a low strikeout rate and high hard-hit rate, but has a much taller task on his hands.
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Los Angeles Angels at Oakland Athletics
Angels ML +128
EDITOR’S NOTE: Angels SP Shohei Ohtani has been scratched from Thursday’s start vs. the Athletics. Patrick Sandoval will start.
Your brain is kind of in a pretzel with this line, considering the A’s have had a great run at the plate but check in as relatively short home underdogs. I don’t think enough attention’s being paid here to how well the Angels have hit lately, checking in with a .312 wOBA over the past two weeks. If you assume the Angels will hit here, which I will say is a good wager against Chris Bassitt, who has been perfectly average all year long, then I think you’d want to take the Angels on the arm of Shohei Ohtani. The righty has been deGrom-like, simply relying on his fastball to get him through innings, and it’s been virtually untouchable. Oakland’s bats have had some issues handling velocity from time to time this season and Thursday night could be yet another bout with a good pitcher that the A’s lose.
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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.