Who wants winners on Saturday?
With 15 Major League Baseball games on the docket Saturday, I’m going across the bigs to find three best bets on the card, including how to bet the Orioles vs. Rays game on Saturday, which features one of the hottest pitchers in baseball in Kyle Bradish.
Can Bradish keep it up, or will he come back down to Earth?
Here’s my bet for that game, as well as the Nationals vs. Braves matchup and the Reds vs. Cubs matchup in a division-filled best bets slate on Saturday.
Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook
MacKenzie Gore has been outstanding this season, striking out a career best 27.3% of batters with a career low 3.57 ERA.
The former Padres prized prospect is starting to see perform like it and now draws a Braves team that is struggling without Ronald Acuna Jr, who tore his ACL and is out for the year. Atlanta is hitting only .211 in June.
Atlanta’s lineup is struggling and Charlie Morton may not be able to give enough help on the mound. He has a 3.88 ERA with a 3.94 xERA, but has a walk rate of nearly 11%. There are simply too many free bases given out in what may be a low scoring affiar.
Atlanta keeps getting priced like the team will stop its slide, but I’m going to take advantage and go against it.
Rays vs. Orioles Prediction and Pick
Both starters have missed time this season, with different results, but I’m betting on it going in a different direction on Saturday.
Kyle Bradish of the Orioles has made six starts and has been pitching the best baseball of his career. He is striking out 32% of batters, way above his career average, while allowing a hard-hit percentage of only 25%, 99th percentile in the big leagues.
While it’s a fantastic start for a league average pitcher, regression will come for him soon.
I’ll try here, on the road against a Rays team that has pop in the lineup and a pitcher who has a high ceiling in Taj Bradley. The hard throwing right hander hasn’t had good results this season, his xERA is hovering around 7.00, but i believe he can outperform expectations given the Orioles have the third fewest walks on the year.
The Cubs’ skid has continued while the Reds have won six straight, so I’ll side with the hot home team.
It helps that Chicago is bottom 10 in OPS against left handers this season as the team faces Reds’ starter Andrew Abbott.
Cincinnati is playing its best ball now, second in the big leagues in OPS over the last 13 games and play in the hitter friendly Great American Ball Park. I don’t see the difference between the two teams at the moment being neglible, like this line indicates, and I expect Cincy to win with ease at home for a seventh straight game.
Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.
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REED WALLACH
Reed is a Senior Editor at SI Betting. He grew up in New Jersey and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His passion lies with the Brooklyn Nets, but is always hunting for an edge.
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