Ladies and gentlemen, the weekend.
It's Friday and there's a whopping 15 MLB games all taking place under the lights. Of those 15, our analysts have found value on three: Phillies vs. Pirates, Rangers vs. Angels and Twins vs. Padres. All three bets are showing positive value tonight.
Here are our best bets from Friday night's Major League Baseball slate.
MLB Odds & Picks
Phillies vs. Pirates
Collin Whitchurch: Assuming Jose Quintana isn't traded prior to 7:05 p.m. ET, he provides the Pittsburgh Pirates with a sizeable pitching advantage tonight against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Quintana is probably never going to strike out as many hitters as he did in his better years, but his newfound success in 2022 has been all about inducing weaker contact. His exit velocity and launch angle numbers are their lowest since 2018 in Chicago, and while he was allowing a BABIP in the .360 range the last couple of years, it's down to a sustainable .310 this season.
He's regained a sense of control of the strike zone and kept his walks down while also posting a groundball rate around league-average. He's firmly an above-average major league starter.
On the other side, Bailey Falter is a Quad-A starter masquerading as a major leaguer for the Phillies. He has a 5.18 ERA that is right in line with his peripherals, as he sports a 5.79 xERA and 4.93 xFIP. Falter struggles in every aspect as a starting pitcher and allows a ton of fly balls, with a ground ball rate sitting just south of 30%.
The Phillies do hammer left-handed pitching, but given the starting pitching edge the Pirates have, there's good value on them as underdogs. Given the trade deadline uncertainty surrounding Quintana, be sure to grab some "Listed Pitcher" action if it's available at your book. But regardless, the Pirates are a solid bet at any number with a plus in front of it.
Rangers vs. Angels
Jules Posner: The Los Angeles Angels stink and they are also bad. There isn't a team in MLB that is in worse shape than the Angels except for maybe the Detroit Tigers.
With injuries piling up, trade rumors swirling and a gray cloud hovering over the franchise, it's hard to back a team with this much dysfunction. In fact, the Angels make their opponents, the Texas Rangers, look like a normal franchise.
While the Rangers have issues of their own, at the very least, they can point and laugh at the Angels. Martin Perez takes the mound for the Rangers and he's been excellent this season. He brings a 2.37 road ERA into a matchup against an offense that has a 24 wRC+ against LHP at home over the past month.
The Rangers' offense has not been great against LHP on the road over the past month, but Patrick Sandoval has struggled in his last two starts. He also brings a 3-6 record into the matchup. Now, I know that pitcher W-L records don't matter much, but Sandoval is 0-5 over his last nine starts and the Angels have only won one of those games.
The Rangers somehow are slight underdogs in this matchup, which scares me, but I'm willing to take the risk on their moneyline as long as it hovers near plus money. Presently the Rangers' moneyline is at -105, but that should be played to -120 or better.
Twins vs. Padres
Brad Cunningham: Joe Ryan has turned into Minnesota's ace this season. His xERA is sitting at 3.34, which is impressive for a heavy fastball pitcher (57.7% usage, per Baseball Savant). Opposing hitters only have a .212 xBA and .308 xwOBA. San Diego is a terrible fastball hitting team, ranking 24th against them with a -24.2 run value, per FanGraphs.
Blake Snell is a positive regression candidate, as his xERA is almost a full run lower than his actual ERA, but he's having some issues with his control because his BB/9 rate is all the way up at 5.40. He's much like Ryan in the fact that he's also a heavy fastball pitcher, which isn't going to work against the Twins who are the fifth best fastball hitting team in baseball with a +36 run value on the season.
I have the Twins projected as a -114 favorite for the first five innings, so I like the value on the current line of +100 or better.
