MLB Best Bets Today March 26

The 2026 MLB season began with one game and now we’ll have 11 today, as the waiting game continues for six teams to get their seasons underway. The Giants and Yankees will not play today, even though you don’t need to incorporate weather days into the schedule in San Francisco. That means 22 teams will play Game 1 of 162 in hopes of finding a way to win a ring in October.

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 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 March 26:

Boston Red Sox (-163, 8) at Cincinnati Reds

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4:10 p.m. ET

A lot of red will be on display here in Cincinnati with Opening Day between the Red Sox and Redlegs. Garrett Crochet gets the call for the Red Sox and Andrew Abbott will go for the Reds, who are down Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo to start the season. That puts a lot on Abbott’s shoulders in the early going. It will be an unseasonably warm day in the ‘natti, with mid-afternoon temps reaching the 80s. I’d have done unspeakable things to get days like that for the Home Openers in Cleveland when I was still living there.

Anyway, my play here is Crochet Over 1.5 Walks Allowed. Crochet had a really bad fastball last season. From a Pitching Runs standpoint, it was his only negative pitch per Statcast at -1.3 runs. His cutter, sinker, and slider all graded are exceptional pitches, ranging from +10.5 Pitching Runs to +14. Hitters posted a .260 BA with a .485 SLG on Crochet’s fastball. The Red Sox have been known ever since Andrew Bailey took over as pitching coach to get pitchers to relax their fastball usage. It is often the pitch that gets hit the hardest and, to paraphrase Bailey, often leads to the most damage.

In the Spring, Crochet did lower his four-seam fastball usage to 29%, opting for a little spike in cutters, sinkers, and a noteworthy spike in sliders. It’s a very small sample, but per FanGraphs, Crochet had a 53.2% F-Strike% and a 43.3% Zone%. During the regular season last year, those numbers were 63.6% and 52.6%, respectively.

I have no doubt that Crochet will have a good season, but there’s an adjustment period here. Last season, Crochet went from 53.7% fastball usage with the White Sox in 2024 to 36.2% with the Red Sox. While working with that new pitch usage in March/April, Crochet posted a 10.3% BB% with 18 walks in 44 innings pitched. He went Over 1.5 Walks in five of his seven March/April starts. With even less fastball usage this season, I could see similar returns.

Pick: Garrett Crochet (BOS) Over 1.5 Walks Allowed (+117)

Detroit Tigers (-136, 7) at San Diego Padres

4:10 p.m. ET

The Craig Stammen era begins in San Diego, as the longtime reliever was hired back in November by the Padres. He is the only current MLB manager who was a pitcher, as a lot of guys around the league that played strapped on the shin guards and were the ones catching the pitchers. It’ll be interesting to see how Stammen handles things, especially bullpen usage early on.

Similarly, it will be interesting to see how he handles Nick Pivetta early on. He’s the de facto ace of the Padres staff now with Joe Musgrove on the IL, Michael King coming back from injury, Yu Darvish on the Restricted List, and Dylan Cease in Toronto. Pivetta was excellent last season in his first year with San Diego with a 2.87 ERA, 3.97 xERA, and a 3.49 FIP. Those were hardly surprising numbers given that he got away from Fenway Park and the AL East.

However, Spring Training was rough for Pivetta. He allowed nine runs on 16 hits over 10 innings of work, picking up just eight strikeouts against four walks. He also allowed four homers. More notably, he missed a start in early March due to arm fatigue. He maxed out at four innings and 71 pitches in his final tune-up against the Rockies, where he allowed five runs on eight hits. I really do not expect Pivetta to get pushed here by Stammen, especially with such a deep bullpen and the state of the starting rotation. I like Under 16.5 Outs Recorded at -117.

Tarik Skubal gets the call for the Tigers here, as he made one start for Team USA in the WBC and four starts for the Tigers. He was solid as usual and his velocity looked just fine, though it does seem like maybe he’s trying to create a little more separation between his slider and changeup than he had last season. We’ll see if that was just building up to the season or not.

If you read the 2026 MLB Betting Guide, you know I’m very high on the Tigers. I like the lineup, I like the bullpen, I love the rotation, and I think this team is ready to make a big leap. Kenley Jansen is a fine addition at the back end of the pen and sets everything up in front of him, allowing AJ Hinch to deploy his middle relievers how he sees fit. 

Skubal has hit the ground running the last two seasons, posting a 1.72 ERA with a 2.21 FIP in 2024 over his first 36.2 innings and a 2.34 ERA with a 2.47 FIP in 2025 over his first 34.2 innings. I’d expect him to do the same here, as he has an 81/11 K/BB ratio in that sample size. The Padres, who are basically running it back with the same lineup, were really helped out at home by a 9.7% BB%, as they only slugged .385 in the pitcher-friendly confines of Petco Park. Their 77 homers ranked 25th. Skubal is very stingy with the walks and the Padres didn’t really hit their way on effectively at home.

Assuming Skubal can go deeper than Pivetta, Hinch should be able to go to his better arms. As long as he has a lead, it should prevent Stammen from using his top-tier relievers, as a former reliever will understand the benefit of saving bullets for the leverage guys for games with a lead. Also, an early exit for Pivetta will bring out one or two of the lesser relief arms for San Diego and a chance for Detroit to add on in the middle innings.

DraftKings had the highest price in the market on the Tigers at time of publish. As I said up top, shop around. Every cent matters.

Picks: Tigers -136; Nick Pivetta (SD) Under 15.5 Outs Recorded (-115)

Texas Rangers at Philadelphia Phillies (-163, 8)

4:15 p.m. ET

It has been a whirlwind month of March for Cristopher Sanchez, who played for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic and signed a contract that will give him financial security for the rest of his life. It also gives him a contract to live up to and we’ll see how that goes for him early in the season here. It is anecdotal, circumstantial, and not quantifiable, but we do see players really struggle when they have the extra-added pressure of living up to expectations as a result of a new contract. I truly believe that was part of what happened to Tanner Bibee last season with Cleveland after signing his five-year, $48 million deal.

Sanchez’s money is much more significant and he’s definitely a better pitcher, but he draws something of a new-look Rangers offense here. I’m very high on Texas this season, as they jettisoned Marcus Semien and Adolis Garcia and I think they’re better for it. Brandon Nimmo is an on-base machine at the top of the order and Semien doesn’t really have a great offensive profile to me. Josh Smith will get the first crack at replacing him at second base and he had a 9.7% BB%.

I’m not sure he’ll start here against the southpaw, as the Rangers may play the platoon game here, but this should be a solid offense all around. The guys who don’t hit for power draw a lot of walks. It’s hard to hit for power against Sanchez, a ground ball wizard with top-notch control, but he hasn’t had a normal build-up to the season and threw just 50 pitches in his last outing, albeit over five innings.

Nathan Eovaldi threw the ball very well in camp, even bumping up his velo a bit from last season. Usually velo is lagging behind a bit for pitchers as they ramp up for the regular season and hold back a bit. Eovaldi didn’t hold back at all. We saw a big drop last season in his four-seam fastball usage and that continued in the Spring. I have no doubt that reducing his FS usage helped with a 38.3% Hard Hit%, his first season under 40% since 2021.

Eovaldi also doesn’t issue many walks and is hard to barrel up with a 50.3% GB% last season. Over 19.1 innings in the spring, he posted a 60% GB%. That is not an ideal matchup for a Phillies offense that likes to walk and slug. Add in a revamped bullpen for the Rangers, who signed a brand new cast of low and mid-leverage arms plus the normal back-end guys and I think this bullpen, which was fifth in ERA last season, will remain a solid unit.

I’ll take a stab here at the underdog Rangers. It looks like a picture perfect weather day, so the Lone Star Staters won’t be playing in cold or trash conditions and most of their players had a more normal path to the season than the Phillies, who were well-represented at the WBC.

Pick: Rangers +135

Tampa Bay Rays (-126, 7.5) at St. Louis Cardinals

4:15 p.m. ET

The Rays hit the road for interleague action to open the season against the Cardinals. It will be a warm day at Busch Stadium, so we’ll see if the ball has a little more carry than we’re accustomed to seeing in this park and in the month of March.

Drew Rasmussen and Matthew Liberatore are the listed hurlers, as Liberatore had a very impressive Spring Training. Rasmussen did not, but he’s a veteran and he knows how to make adjustments. That said, his velo was down a bit and he didn’t generate a lot of swings and misses. He only had an 8.0% SwStr% and he sat in the 93-94 range in his final tune-up. He’s normally a 95-96 guy and he could very well be there in this start, but it’s pretty clear that he’s still working on a lot of things.

Also, Rasmussen needs his command to be on-point because he throws a lot of hard stuff. Nearly 55% of his pitches in the Spring were fastballs and sinkers and over 58% last season. With a really young Cardinals lineup, I think we’ll see guys who throw more breaking balls have more success against them.

Liberatore’s big K% bump was a huge story in Cardinals camp, as he worked on a splitter that he learned from studying what Trey Yesavage does with his. Liberatore also added a little bit of velo, especially on his cutter, which he threw harder in the spring and subtracted a bit from his slider. He struck out 19 with just two walks in 15 innings of work. The Rays struck out nearly 24% of the time against lefties last season. They have some new bench pieces this season, but the right-handed batters on the short side of the platoon still have some K% issues.

We can all agree that the Cardinals won’t be very good this season. I don’t think the Rays will be either. Liberatore certainly has the chance to take a leap this season and it seems as though Rasmussen is working through a few different things. St. Louis was a substantially better defensive team than the Rays last season, a difference of 66 Outs Above Average per Statcast. Whether or not that helps in a one-game setting is up for debate, but it’s hard to ignore.

Bullpens are going to be kind of coin-flippy early on as guys settle in, but I do think that the Cardinals give theirs a lead and hopefully they can hold it.

Pick: Cardinals +104

The post MLB Best Bets Today: Adam Burke’s Picks for Thursday, March 26 appeared first on VSiN.