In preparation for a huge weekend, the MLB schedule is very light on April 2. So light that we only have six of the league’s 30 teams in action. Not only do we have a rash of Home Openers on Friday, but there were also a lot of teams that started the season a long way away from home in warmer weather, so they needed a travel day to get where they were going built into the schedule. Or, with so many getaway day games on Wednesday, just a chance to get situated on Thursday.

Regardless, it’s a small card and one of the games was already postponed, as the Blue Jays and White Sox will try to play on Friday instead.

I’ll be posting my daily best bets Monday-Saturday with a Sunday Night Baseball preview on Sunday, as all the day games make it tough to get something out with lead time out here in Las Vegas. All lines are from DraftKings and are current at the time of publish. Please take the initiative to SHOP AROUND for the best odds. It matters. A lot.

One new offering this baseball season is our Opta AI Player Prop Projections. They are available to everybody now, but will soon be for VSiN Pro Subscribers only, so you can check out our current offers here. Zachary Cohen will be using those projections and his own handicapping to write up MLB player props.

Greg Peterson will have his best bets posted the night before and you can also check out his daily lines to see what looks to be off-market. Steve Makinen has also released his updated Bullpen Betting Systems and DraftKings Splits Systems, plus he’ll have a daily analytics report.

Feel free to use my opinions and thoughts, as well as our suite of MLB Betting Tools, including the DraftKings and Circa Betting Splits, Steve Makinen’s Daily Ratings, Greg Peterson’s Daily Lines, the 1st 5 Innings Analyzer, and Umpire Stats. Check out our new MLB tools powered by Ballpark Pal: Strikeout Projections, Park Factors, and YRFI Report.

That’s a lot of coverage and we’ll be doing it all season long. We’re happy to have you along for the ride.

Here are the MLB best bets today for April 2:

Atlanta Braves (-118, 9) at Arizona Diamondbacks

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8:40 p.m. ET

Reynaldo Lopez and Ryne Nelson get this series going, as the Diamondbacks stay at home and the Braves head out to the desert after playing a getaway day game against the A’s on Wednesday.

Lopez is a guy that I wanted to fade coming into the season and that didn’t really work out in his first start, as he allowed one run on three hits, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story. In that outing against the Royals, Lopez only struck out three and all four of his pitches graded below average from a Stuff+ standpoint. He’s a guy who really had a hard time maintaining his velocity in Spring Training after missing virtually all of last season. His spin rates were down from 2024 and noticeably down from 2023 in that first start.

He was also down about 1.1 mph with his fastball velo from 2024. We’ll see if this is a new pattern or not, but Lopez allowed a 70.6% Air% per Statcast, a huge departure from most of his previous seasons. He did induce a lot of weak aerial contact from the Royals, but the Diamondbacks certainly seem to be a more dangerous offense, at least in the early going.

Nelson, meanwhile, seems to be a guy on the rise. He had a very difficult assignment to start the season against the Dodgers and allowed four runs on two hits with four strikeouts and three walks. Two homers were what really did him in and hurt badly in that start. Like Lopez, he was surprisingly tilted towards the fly ball side and also induced a good amount of weak contact, but a few balls did really carry on him.

He did have a 12% SwStr% and Stuff+ really liked the shape and look of everything. He just fell victim to some sequencing and probably the best lineup in baseball. Nelson has lowered his ERA about a run per season over the last three seasons and also saw a nice K% bump from 2024 to 2025.

The D-Backs have the starting pitcher edge here, plus the Braves are hitting the road for the first time for a late game. I’m not buying stock in Lopez and I’m not sure just yet how much stock to buy in the offense.

Pick: Diamondbacks -102

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