Today, we celebrate our Independence Day.
And what better way than by betting some baseball? There's plenty of game spread throughout this Fourth of July, but our analysts have zeroed in on three games: Giants vs. Diamondbacks, Mariners vs. Padres and Rockies vs. Dodgers.
Here are our three best bets from Monday's Major League Baseball slate.
MLB Odds & Picks
San Francisco Giants vs. Arizona Diamondbacks
Jules Posner: The San Francisco Giants head to Arizona to open up a three-game set against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday night following getting swept at home by the Chicago White Sox.
Carlos Rodon is looking to play the role of stopper for the Giants and he's been on fire over the past month. In June, Rodon had a 1.25 ERA, 1.87 FIP and only allowed a .185 BAA. He's been dealing.
Speaking of stoppers, the Giants' offense has been very stoppable lately. Injuries have really hurt their ability to leverage platoons and they have been struggling because of it. Over the past month, the Giants' offense has an 89 wRC+, which is 21st in MLB against LHP on the road over the past month.
Madison Bumgarner is on the mound for the Diamondbacks and he's been pitching well at home as of late. Over the past month at home, Bumgarner has posted a 2.65 ERA, 3.42 FIP and has allowed a 0.5 HR/9. Bumgarner has been able to keep the ball in the park and pitch his way through trouble at home and that should continue against a reeling Giants offense.
The total opened at 8.5 and quickly moved down to 8. This should be played at -120 or better. The first five innings has some decent value either at 4.5 a -140 or 4 for -110. Both are definitely in play as well.
Seattle Mariners vs. San Diego Padres
Kenny Ducey: We know it’s been a little bit of a struggle this year for Chris Flexen. The righty owns a 4.32 ERA through 15 starts with a poor 42.5% hard-hit rate and low 16.1% strikeout rate. With that, the question becomes whether or not the Mariners can win in spite of their pitcher.
I believe they can. Seattle is red-hot at the plate right now with the eighth-best wRC+ in baseball over the last two weeks with a decent-enough 76.6% contact rate. It has struck out in 24.1% of plate appearances, which definitely stings, but cushioning the blow is a 10% walk rate — among the best in the league over the two weeks.
Seattle is also above-average against lefties with a 105 wRC+, which will be paramount against Sean Manaea. The lefty owns some very solid peripherals, sporting a 3.32 xERA with a solid 25.8% strikeout rate, but the troubling part is his 9% walk rate, which is far worse than anything we’ve seen in the last four years.
I give the Mariners' offense a solid chance of winning this game in spite of Flexen, but the work may not even be that hard considering the Padres are second-to-last in wRC+ over the last two weeks. This is a team which is about out of patience for the injured Fernando Tatis, Jr. and it appears things won’t get a whole lot better until he’s back.
Colorado Rockies vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
Brad Cunningham: This is a fantastic matchup for Will Smith. Kyle Freeland does a good job of mixing all five pitches in his arsenal (doesn't go to one pitch more than 30% of the time), but not only does Smith slap left-handed pitching silly (.309 BA/.417 wOBA/172 wRC+), but he hits all five of Freeland's pitches well.
Against left-handed fastballs, sinkers, sliders, curveballs and changeups, Smith has a .329 xBA/.642 xSLG/.450 xwOBA on over 240 pitches seen. He also was been on fire in the month of June, putting up a .386 wOBA, 151 wRC+ and averaged 2.25 bases per game.
So, getting plus money for this type of matchup against Freeland and then of course getting into the Rockies bullpen, which is bottom 10 in pretty much every metric, is a fantastic price for Smith, who has been regularly hitting fourth in the Dodgers' lineup.
