MLB Best Bets Today June 20th

Greetings folks! Our usual baseball maestro Adam Burke is on vacation for a while, so while he is away I’ll be taking over daily MLB best bets.

Despite Adam’s absence, the usual schedule of articles will remain. I’ll have daily best bets Monday-Saturday and I’ll write up the standalone preview for Sunday Night Baseball on Sundays.

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 First 5 Innings Analyzer, and Umpire Stats.

Here are the MLB Best Bets today for June 20th:

Baltimore Orioles at New York Yankees (-227, 9)

7:05 p.m. ET

New York’s offense finally woke up on Thursday. The Yankees went 12-of-31 and plated seven runs in a 7-3 win that snapped their anemic six-game losing streak. With the slump in the rearview mirror it’s now time to buy in on New York stringing together some wins.

Tomoyuki Sugano will oppose the Yankees today. Sugano is a monster regression candidate, but we have yet to see it really come to fruition. The Orioles’ right-hander has a 3.38 ERA through 14 starts, but his 4.70 FIP and 4.85 xERA tell us he’s been getting away with subpar pitching.

Sugano is not going to generate swings-and-misses. His whiff rate (17.1%) and strikeout rate (14.1%) are abysmal. He has an ability to get hitters to chase (29.7%), but that is the extent of his ability. Sugano’s barrel rate allowed of 9.9% also ranks in the 27th percentile. He’s not generating strikeouts and allowing a high rate of well-struck balls, and yet he continues to pitch at an above average level.

New York faced Sugano once this season in Baltimore. He threw five innings, allowed five hits and struck out eight. I believe the Yankees can put forth a better effort with a second look at him.

The other thing going for the Yankees in this contest is Max Fried. Fried has not allowed more than two earned runs in 14 of his 15 starts this season. He faces an Orioles lineup which ranks 30th in wOBA (.267) and 27th in batting average (.214) against southpaws. This should be a matchup in which he thrives, and by extension, so too should his team.

Pick: Yankees -1.5 (-114)

Houston Red Sox (-187, 8) at Los Angeles Angels

9:38 p.m. ET

The Angels return from an east coast trip riding high. Los Angeles might have been swept by Baltimore, but it took three of four from New York and is now just two games out of the final wild card spot in the American League.

But all good things must come to an end, and Hunter Brown is the perfect pitcher to quell any good vibes for the Halos.

In a league with Max Fried and Tarik Skubal it is Brown who leads in ERA (1.88). He’s allowed two earned runs or fewer in 12 of his 14 starts this season. Brown is the perfect pitcher to face this Angels lineup. He has struck out 32.3% of the batters he has faced this season. He ranks in the 79th percentile in chase rate (31.0%) and the 73rd percentile in whiff rate (28.9%).

The Angels are not a consistent hitting team. They rank 24th in wOBA (.300) and they are tied with the Rockies for last in strikeout rate (26.5%). Los Angeles didn’t even hit well in the series win over New York. In 154 plate appearances across four games the Halos hit .200 and scored 11 runs.

Pick: Hunter Brown UNDER 1.5 Earned Runs (+125)

Boston Red Sox at San Francisco Giants (-138, 7.5)

10:15 p.m. ET

In a series that will be all about the trade of Rafael Devers it is fitting that this play will be all about my trust in Hayden Birdsong.

Since transitioning into the starting rotation Birdsong has been brilliant. In five starts he sports a 3.24 ERA and 2.70 FIP. He comes into this start off a strong outing at Colorado in which he allowed just three earned runs over six innings with six strikeouts. 

Birdstrong has good swing-and-miss stuff. He ranks in 78th percentile in whiff rate (29.5%) and he’s struck out 24.5% of hitters to this point. The right-hander has allowed quite a bit of hard contact (44.4% hard-hit rate allowed) but limits barrels (6.7%) and at Oracle he is in a park that will allow him to get away with it.

Boston is clearly missing Devers. The Red Sox might have nabbed the series in Seattle against the Mariners, but they did so hitting .102 across three games with five runs scored. It’s a lineup that I want to take my shots against as often as possible when I have a pitcher I trust in on the other side.

Pick: Red Sox TT UN 3.5 (-115)

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