MLB Best Bets for Thursday (4/15)

We’re two weeks into the MLB season and Thursday brings us a 12-game slate, including an east coast doubleheader between Seattle and Baltimore. An early (noon) game between the Phillies and Mets kicks off the day, with the Rockies and Dodgers wrapping things up. A couple of bets that I like for the Thursday slate are below, so let’s take a deeper look into these matchups.

Boston Red Sox @ Minnesota Twins

The American League-leading Red Sox will send out Garrett Richards in an attempt to complete the four-game sweep. Minnesota will counter with Michael Pineda to try and salvage the last game of the series.

There isn’t a team in the league hotter than Boston right now. Since getting swept by Baltimore to start the season, they’ve won nine straight, sweeping the reigning AL Champion Tampa Bay Rays, returning the favor and sweeping Baltimore, and taking the first three games from Minnesota so far in this series. They have the fourth-highest .350 wOBA and 120 wRC+ in the league to start the year and have even better splits against right-handers and on the road. Facing righties, they’ve posted a .384 wOBA and 143 wRC+, second only to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and have league-leading road marks with an incredibly high .413 wOBA and 167 wRC+. They have a top-10 hard hit rate, a top-five contact rate and a top-three swing rate; Boston is a team that loves to hack and when they do, they make hard contact. 

Pineda’s had two good starts to begin the season, going 5 innings allowing 4 hits and no earned runs to Milwaukee in his first outing and 6 innings, 4 hits and 2 earned runs to Seattle in his second. Neither opponent was a particularly formidable offenses, so let’s take those stats with a grain of salt. That said, his 1.64 ERA on the season is definitely impressive, but his 4.05 FIP and extremely lucky .207 BABIP allowed are worrisome. In his last full season in 2019, his hard-hit rate allowed was higher than preferred at 39% and projection systems aren’t necessarily crazy about him this year, having him performing around a 4.60 ERA and a 4.50 FIP. Minnesota does have one of the league’s better bullpens, but they just had to throw 6 innings against Boston Wednesday during their doubleheader, so they could have some tired arms out there. 

The pick

I’m seeing a lot of value in this game all leaning the way of Boston and runs. With the way Boston has been playing since their first series, I don’t see how they could have opened as +140 dogs in this matchup. Richards always has the chance to implode, as he’s displayed in his first two starts this season, but I have this much closer to a pick ‘em. I like Boston +140, total over 8.5 runs -120, and Boston team total over 4.5 +145. Excluding their first series, they’ve scored over 4.5 runs in 7 of 9 games, with one of the games where they failed to reach 4.5 runs being a 7-inning game that they scored 3 in. If I had to choose one bet here, I’m leaning Boston TT o4.5 +145. 

Cleveland Indians @ Chicago White Sox

Cleveland is looking to take Game 4 and split their first meeting of the year, while Chicago is focused on winning the four-gamer against a division rival. Aaron Civale will be on the bump for Cleveland taking on Chicago’s Lance Lynn.

After two fairly low-scoring games to start the series, a 4-3 Chicago win and a 2-0 Cleveland win, Chicago exploded for 4 runs in their first five batters and 8 runs in the first 3 innings of Game 3, eventually leading to an 8-0 win in a Carlos Rodón no-hitter. They ran into Triston McKenzie and Shane Bieber in Games 1 and 2, so a little can be forgiven about their offensive performances in those ones, but when they were faced with the back half of Cleveland’s rotation, they did not disappoint. Chicago tagged Zach Plesac for 7 hits and 6 earned runs in only two-thirds of an inning, all while Plesac is projected to be slightly better than Civale on the season. They have the highest BB% in the majors combined with a bottom-10 K% and a BABIP of .275, leaving a little wiggle room for some positive regression back to league average of .300. Even with their below league average BABIP and slightly bad luck, they’re averaging north of 5 runs per game. After being a top-10 home offense in 2020, they should be able to regain their form if the balls they put in play start finding gaps instead of gloves. 

Civale has taken the hill twice this year and has gone 7 innings allowing 2 hits and 3 earned runs and 7.2 innings allowing 3 hits and 1 earned run. Those numbers certainly look great, but both starts were against lowly Detroit, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Civale is projected for an ERA around 4.65 with a similar FIP for 2021. Even with his good stat lines through his first two starts, his underlying metrics have his 2021 FIP up to 4.78 compared to his 2.45 ERA, in part because when he has allowed hits a solid portion of them have been homers (21.5% HR/FB so far in 2021). He’s also been insanely lucky on the year, with a strand rate of 100% while holding opposing hitters to a miniscule BABIP of .067, a number that is virtually guaranteed to go through some negative regression. Cleveland does have one of the best bullpens in the league, but they couldn’t be less rested as they were just forced into 7 1/3 innings of work yesterday after Plesac couldn’t get out of the first inning.

The pick

We backed the White Sox Wednesday night and they cashed within the first five batters of the game so of course we’re rolling with them again. Even shorthanded, they’ve shown they have the ability to put up runs and are able to take advantage of the back half of Cleveland’s rotation. They have the luxury of playing at home and having a tired bullpen to come in to relieve Civale. Chicago’s offensive talent combined with the negative regression coming Civale’s way is too good to pass up here as I have Chicago projected for 5.14 runs. Chicago TT o4.5 +115.