MLB Best Bets: Backing a Pair of AL Central Teams for Plus Money
It’s Friday, and here at SI Betting, we like to have fun with some plus-money bets as we head into the weekend.
Here are a couple worth a spin tonight!
For starters, we’re going to repeat our winning play from Thursday, taking the Guardians to cover the run line again tonight vs. the Royals for plus money (+105).
A lot of the reasoning remains the same: The Royals have the second-worst record in the MLB (25-63). They also have the worst record vs. the run line this season, covering only 34.5% of the time (34-57).
The Guardians are at home behind Aaron Civale, who has been strong this season with a sparkling 2.96 ERA. Statcast says his ERA should be closer to 3.99, but the Royals, who are averaging a mere 3.64 runs per game across the past two weeks, are unlikely to be the team that suddenly exposes him. Civale has not surrendered more than four earned runs in any single game this year.
The Royals give Daniel Lynch the start on the road tonight. Lynch has been fine this season, with an ERA of 4.14 and may be able to keep Kansas City in the game, but all bets on the Royals are off once their bullpen gets involved. Kansas City has the second-worst bullpen ERA for the season (5.11) and across the past two weeks that ERA is all the way up at 6.66.
For our second play, I hate to pick on a guy when he’s down but it’s awfully hard not to back the underdogs today vs. Alek Manoah and the Blue Jays.
Yeah, that’s right. We are going bold and taking the Tigers at plus money (+160) to win it outright.
Am I crazy? Maybe. Or maybe Toronto is crazy for giving Manoah another chance.
Either way, we are about to find out.
Detroit’s Alex Faedo has a 5.15 ERA that should be closer to 3.15, according to his Statcast xERA, and we think he can keep the Tigers in the game tonight. The Tigers have averaged 4.77 runs per game across the last two weeks, while the Jays have averaged 4.67. The difference will be if the Tigers can get to Manoah. Manoah did not make it out of the first inning in his last start, surrendering six earned runs to the Astros.
The Bets: Guardians -1.5 (+105) | Tigers ML (+160)
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