We have a pretty busy Thursday slate around Major League Baseball, as there are 11 games on the docket. Seven of them will be daytime starts, ranging from 12:35 p.m. ET in Pittsburgh to 3:05 p.m. ET in Sacramento. That leaves us with just four night games and we’ve already seen a couple of pitching changes on the early slate. While 11 games seems like a lot, there are some tough handicaps and some are going to be rushed a bit as well.

Unfortunately, the only play I really liked today is on one of those afternoon games, as nothing on the late slate seemed appealing to me.

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 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.

Here are the MLB best bets today for May 14:

Seattle Mariners (-126, 9) at Houston Astros

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2:10 p.m. ET

We’ll see if it’s a wise decision to hop on this game even though it does have slightly less lead time than usual. Luis Castillo gets the call today for the Mariners and Mike Burrows for the Astros. We’ve seen the market come in on Seattle in this one, as Castillo has a 6.57 ERA with a 5.74 xERA, 4.54 FIP, and a 4.34 xFIP over his 38.1 innings of work. There are some positive regression signs in there, largely due to a .364 BABIP against and a 59% LOB%.

But, Castillo has earned those numbers. While he’s missed a decent amount of bats with 37 K in 38.1 innings, he’s also allowed a ton of hard contact with a 51.6% Hard Hit% and a 12.1% Barrel%. He gave up three Barrels in his start against Houston back on April 11. Burrows also struggled in his start against Seattle on April 13 with six runs allowed on 11 hits, but it was a truly weird game for him.

He only struck out three of the 30 batters that he faced, despite a season-high 47.4% Chase Rate and a season-high 17.3% SwStr%. He only allowed a 34.6% Hard Hit% in that start and one Barrel. In fact, Burrows’ 33.8% Hard Hit% and 6.6% Barrel% rank in the 75th and 61st percentiles, respectively. He’s definitely run into a lot of bad luck. Castillo has to some degree as well, but he’s earned more of that bad luck than Burrows has.

Burrows just threw seven shutout innings against the Reds and has been on an upswing, as he’s allowed five runs on 16 hits in his last 18 innings of work with 17 K against five walks. Castillo, meanwhile, has allowed 15 runs on 18 hits in his last 15 innings with four homers allowed. 

It’s a getaway day game for Seattle, who heads home to host San Diego. Houston stays home and welcomes Texas to town. The Mariners used six relievers yesterday and they have four guys that would be pitching for a third time in four days and one, Eduard Bazardo, who would be pitching for the fourth time in five days and fifth time in seven days if he’s called into action. Castillo has only gotten more than 16 outs in two of his eight starts and righties are batting .351/.405/.468 with a .391 wOBA. I’d say that the Astros are worth a look today.

Pick: Astros +104

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