This article is part of our MLB Picks series.
Top MLB Betting Picks: June 14th Best Bets & Predictions
Season record 17-19, -2.78 units
It's a great sports weekend, with the US Open and College World Series on tap, as well as a full slate of MLB games. Hopefully, the weather in the northeast holds out and we can get it all in. Let's try to get back in the black today!
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Giants at Dodgers: Best Betting Insights and Pitcher Analysis
It's not Rivalry Week in MLB as far as I know, but we do have Yankees-Red Sox and this clash in LA. We get an added bonus here as the winner of this game will go to bed as the leaders of the NL West.
Landen Roupp starts for the Giants vs. some Clayton Kershaw guy (the name sounds familiar) for LA. Roupp has a 1.88 ERA and 1.15 WHIP over his last 7 starts, covering 38.1 innings. He's kept the ball in the yard over that span, allowing just two homers, and on the ground with a low 6.5-degree LA. It's a predominantly sinker/curve mix without high velocity, as he averages 92.5 mph. Oddly enough, his surface numbers have vastly improved as his K's have gone down. Roupp had a 25.9% K%/12.6% SwStr% over his first 6 starts, but just a 5.10 ERA/1.63 WHIP combo, whereas in his last 7 starts, that K% is down to 17.3% and the SwStr% is 7.8%. Go figure.
Kershaw, after a rough season debut and a 2nd start truncated by rain, has turned back into Clayton Kershaw again. At last the aging version that can still get key outs even with diminished everything.
Over his last 3 starts, Kershaw has a 3.07 ERA, but an ugly 1.57 WHIP. He's averaging 89.5 on the fastball and getting just an 18.5% K% overall. Batters are really squaring him up with a 95.3 EV in his last three starts, and 93.1 EV overall.
How bad is that EV? Only Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Oneil Cruz have higher than 95.3 EV's among qualified hitters, and just 15 qualified hitters top 93.1 overall. What's more, Kershaw's not a groundball pitcher (he's pretty neutral there), so it's a lot of hoping liners go at fielders.
On the plus side for Kershaw, he's a lefty and the Giants have been extremely meh vs. southpaws all year.
Still, I like this matchup for the Giants and we have some betting trends that favor them. The Dodgers are 13-18-4 in F5's at home for a league-worst -26.2% ROI as per VSiN. Further, they're 18-28-5 in F5's at night, also a league worst -29% ROI. LA is also bad as an ML favorite in F5's, going 24-30-10, -21.6% ROI. The Giants, meanwhile, are a league-best 10-7-2, 34.1% ROI as F5 ML underdogs.
MLB Best Bet
- Giants +124 F5 (DraftKings)
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Angels at Orioles: Best Betting Insights and Pitcher Analysis
One of these teams remains firmly in the Wild Card hunt, and the other is the Orioles. Yes, we all joke a lot about the Angels and their propensity to add basically every player who was last decent in 2019. But they still have Mike Trout, and he's currently healthy. Taylor Ward is 3rd in the AL in homers, albeit with just a .260 OBP. Zach Neto leads off and already has 10 homers and 11 steals despite missing nearly a month to start the season, and Jo Adell is currently on fire. The one-time uber-prospect is slashing .300/.391/.825 over the last 2 weeks, with 7 homers.
The Orioles, for their par,t have played better lately. Time is running out however, as they sit 13th in the AL, 5 games behind the Angels and 7.5 out of the final Wild Card spot. Yes, the season has 3.5 months to go, but realistically, this team is getting broken up if they're still out of it near the trade deadline. Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg have recently returned from long injury absences, and that really should help.
For today, the Orioles start their nominal ace, Tomoyuki Sugano. He continues to defy gravity, parlaying an impossibly low 13.9% K% into a 3.23 ERA and 1.10 WHIP. He doesn't walk many (4% BB%), but his ERA estimators all suggest he's more of a high 4's ERA pitcher. The Angels start lefty Tyler Anderson, never a strikeout demon himself. His 3.99 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 18.6% package is pretty much his norm.
The keyword here is "lefty". The Orioles are just brutal vs. southpaws this year with a 62 wRC+ on the season, better than only the "paste-eating" Rockies. They've trended slightly better, but only to 85 wRC+ in the past month. As you might expect, they've been a fade in this spot in the betting markets, going just 4-14-5 -53% ROI in F5's vs. lefty starters.
MLB Best Bet
- Angels +114 F5 (DraftKings)
