MLB Best Bets: Friday, April 15th
Today is a beautiful day for MLB baseball. If you're lucky enough to get the day off work, you're in for a great day of America's favorite pastime. All 30 MLB teams are in action today. When you have a slate of games this big, it's important to put any bias aside and look into the trends.
Today's Best Bets in the MLB are below:
#1 Yankees/Mets ML Parlay (+116)
The New York Yankees took a quick flight to Baltimore last night to prepare for their first road series of the year against the Orioles. Yankees manager Aaron Boone probably hasn't been too satisfied with the way his team has performed lately. Luckily, this is a great matchup for him to see his team flourish. The Orioles have consistently been one of the worst teams in the MLB for a decade now. That hasn't changed looking at their 1-5 record to start this campaign.
Since 2020, the Yankees are 18-11 against the Orioles with an average margin of victory of two runs. Jordan Montgomery will get the ball for the Yankees. He had to face one of the best lineups in baseball the last time he pitched: the Blue Jays and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Tonight, he's facing a lineup that has an average of .201, which ranks in the bottom five of the league. The Yankees, on the other hand, have a lot of powerful bats in their lineup with Judge, Stanton, Rizzo, and LeMahieu leading the way. I don't see the Yankees having a problem with their division foe tonight. The New York Mets will face the Arizona Diamondbacks in their first home game of the new season. The Mets' starting pitcher tonight will be Chris Bassit, who pitched a six-inning shutout against the Nationals in his first start of the season. The Diamondbacks have the league's worst batting average at .140, and that's not a good formula for winning games in the MLB.
#2 Guardians/Giants NRFI "No Run First Inning" (-135)
My favorite bet in baseball is the no-run first inning. There's nothing like watching six outs fly by and seeing the money in your sportsbook account before the second inning starts. Tonight we have two solid pitchers, Carlos Rodon and Zach Plesac starting for their respective teams. In his first start of the season, Carlos Rodon struck out 12 batters in only five innings of work while allowing only one run against the Marlins. Plesac had similar success against the Royals, where he threw 5.1 scoreless innings against his division rival.
12 strikeouts my goodness Carlos Rodón welcome to your new team https://t.co/Yyq9Sv8ydP
"12 strikeouts my goodness Carlos Rodon welcome to your new team" - @ Talkin' Baseball
We're only asking each pitcher to get three outs without allowing a run, and I like the odds!
#3 Nationals 1st Half ML +105
¡La primera entrada fue muy productiva! 🎉
#LosNacionales | #NATITUDE https://t.co/zq3Whezqbk
"¡La primera entrada fue muy productiva! #LosNacionales #NATITUDE" - @ Los Nacionales
If you're new to baseball betting, the first five innings of a game is considered to be the first half. As I mentioned with the Orioles previously, the Pittsburgh Pirates have been one of the worst teams in baseball over the last decade. Looking at their roster, that probably won't change this year seeing the amount of talent some MLB teams have compared to these Pirates. The Pirates are sending 26-year-old Mitch Keller to the mound today after a shaky start to the season where he gave up four earned runs through four innings to the Cardinals. I think the best way to describe the Nationals blunders yesterday is that they came off of a highly emotional series win against the defending champions and were overlooking the Pirates a little bit. I don't see that happening again today. I'm taking the Nationals for plus money.