Early and late is the theme for Wednesday, as we have plenty of getaway day action to go along with a good assortment of night games. There are a lot of aces and a lot of faces on today’s slate, as some of the game’s best butt heads, while other games feature guys still trying to carve out their place in the league. As usual, there’s something for everyone in the MLB and today’s schedule is no different.
And, as usual, I’m only looking at the later games for the sake of lead time. Fortunately, Greg Peterson (linked below) always has his picks out the night before, so you can get your early action from him and decide what you want to do about my thoughts for the nighttime games.
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 April 29:
Houston Astros at Baltimore Orioles (-126, 9)
Embed from Getty Images6:35 p.m. ET
To Camden Yards we go for Peter Lambert vs. Chris Bassitt, as Lambert makes his 38th career start and Bassitt makes his 224th. It’s been a rough start for the wily vet, who has a 6.75 ERA, 6.22 xERA, and a 6.27 FIP over his 21.1 innings of work in his first season with the Orioles. He’s walked more batters than he’s struck out, allowed a .354 BABIP, and simply hasn’t had a lot of success.
However, there are a few things that look promising for him in this start and moving forward. Let’s start with this matchup specifically. Bassitt has been obliterated by lefties this season to the tune of a .377/.478/.623 slash and a .471 wOBA in 67 PA. Righties have a .297/.366/.297 slash against him in 41 PA. He’s allowed 11 hits and they’ve all been singles. For his career, Bassitt has allowed a .253/.322/.429 slash and a .330 wOBA to lefties, but righties only have a .237/.298/.341 slash with a .283 wOBA.
The Astros are a very right-handed heavy lineup and that should be to Bassitt’s benefit here. Even as recently as last season, Bassitt allowed just a .233/.290/.356 slash with a .286 wOBA to right-handed hitters. He hasn’t allowed a wOBA above .286 since 2019. He’s absolutely had a rough start to the season, but this should be a navigable lineup for him.
The K/BB ratio is really bad. Bassitt only has a 21.1% Chase Rate and a 7.5% SwStr%. That would be the lowest Chase Rate of his career and lowest SwStr% since 2018. So, I can’t put much lipstick on that pig and I am admittedly concerned about his dropping arm angle. He may just be running out of gas. This start will tell us a lot if that’s the case.
However, his .337 BA against and .354 BABIP are numbers that should come down. Bassitt has only allowed three Barrels for a 3.7% Barrel% and a 35.4% Hard Hit%. There are 142 pitchers that have thrown at least 20 innings this season. Bassitt has the 18th-highest batting average on balls in play against, while sitting 30th in Hard Hit% and 11th in Barrel%. He hasn’t given up a ton of hard contact at all. He very much deserves a better fate on balls in play. He ranks in the 73rd percentile in average exit velocity, 85th in Barrel%, and 67th in Hard Hit%, while also being above average in GB%. He’s run into a hell of a lot of bad luck and the low K% has exacerbated it.
Lambert is only a Major Leaguer because the Astros have 9,000 injuries. He just went six shutout innings with eight strikeouts against a hapless Guardians lineup in the second-best start of his career by FanGraphs Game Score. His only better start came against the Cubs back on June 6, 2019, so we’re talking about more or less a career day against Cleveland. This is a guy who pitched to a 4.26 ERA in Japan last season with a 10.2% BB%. I really don’t expect much out of him as a big leaguer.
The Astros have the worst bullpen ERA in baseball at 6.27 and the highest FIP at 5.89. The Orioles are mid-pack in both categories. Even if Bassitt doesn’t see improvement, the O’s have some late-game advantages.
Pick: Orioles -126
St. Louis Cardinals at Pittsburgh Pirates (-126, 8.5)
6:40 p.m. ET
There seems to be some line value on the Cardinals today as they look to make it three in a row over the Pirates. Andre Pallante gets the call for the Redbirds and Bubba Chandler for the Buccos. I will preface this by saying that I very rarely am interested in backing Pallante, so that was a pretty strong indicator for me today that the Cardinals are a bet.
Pallante has allowed 13 runs on 22 hits in 25.1 innings of work across five starts, but he allowed seven of those runs in his April 12 start against the Red Sox. That means he’s allowed a total of six runs across his other four starts. He’s an extreme ground ball guy supported by one of the best infield defenses in the league, as the Cardinals are +8 Outs Above Average around the horn so far this season to rank third behind the Royals and Dodgers.
They’ve been especially good behind Pallante with +4 OAA, tied for the most in the league. They stay alert and ready with a pitch-to-contact ground ball merchant and it has allowed Pallante to have a lot more success than a guy with his skill set and peripherals should have.
Left-handed hitters have done the bulk of the damage for the Pirates this season. Pallante, despite being a right-handed ground ball pitcher, has been better against LHB than RHB in his career. Lefties are only batting .242/.306/.368 with a .298 wOBA compared to righties slashing .284/.362/.418 with a .343 wOBA.
On the other side, Chandler is having some growing pains. The 23-year-old has a pretty similar set of numbers to Pallante from a Game Log standpoint, as he’s allowed 14 runs on 20 hits in 24 innings with one awful start to his name. It was his last one against the Rangers with six runs allowed over four innings, so he’s allowed eight runs over his other four starts. But, Chandler only has a 19.4% K% with a 14.8% BB%. He’s had some major control issues and many of them have come with runners on base. He’s got a 16/8 K/BB ratio with the bases empty, but a 5/8 K/BB ratio with men on base, where he’s allowed a .412 wOBA in 45 PA.
The Cardinals are a top-10 offense by wRC+ over the last 14 days and are a lineup that has consistently put a lot of balls in play. If they can mix in a few free passes today, that will upgrade their run-scoring chances quite a bit.
Statistically, the Pirates bullpen looks a lot better than the Cardinals bullpen, but St. Louis’ primary relievers have been good. The fringes of the roster are the ones who have been really poor.
Pick: Cardinals +104
Arizona Diamondbacks at Milwaukee Brewers (-131, 8.5)
7:40 p.m. ET
It will be Eduardo Rodriguez vs. Brandon Sproat here, as E-Rod makes his 241st start and Sproat makes his eighth. The youngster owns a 6.45 ERA with a 5.22 xERA and a 5.99 FIP for the Brewers over 22.1 innings of work. He’s started three times and bulk relieved twice. It’s entirely possible that the Brewers shift their plans and do that again, but he’s made back-to-back starts, so this should be a traditional outing.
Sproat gave up 11 runs on 10 hits in his first 6.2 innings of the season, but has allowed just five runs over his last three appearances covering 15.2 innings of work. It seems like he may be slowly, subtly improving, but this is going to be a very difficult test for him. What has helped Sproat lately is that he’s only walked six batters in those 15.2 innings compared to seven walks in his first 6.2 frames. Along with that, he’s seen SwStr% spikes to 14.7% and 11.8% in his last two starts.
The Diamondbacks are fourth in wRC+ over the last 14 days, slashing .280/.340/.471 with a 126 wRC+ and a .357 wOBA. They’ve been swinging it very well. They’re also a top-five team in K% and SwStr% in that sample. In fact, they have the lowest K% in the last 14 days. It’s a group that got off to a bit of a slow start, but has really picked it up recently. Sproat has allowed a 45.2% Hard Hit% with a 9.7% Barrel%. I think this could be a tough assignment.
On the other side, Rodriguez is full of red flags. He has a 2.89 ERA with a 4.94 xERA and a 4.98 FIP. He’s been very fortunate thus far to run an 86% LOB% with a .244 BABIP and a 15% K%. He also has a 10% BB%. The Brewers have been hit or miss offensively due to some injuries, but they don’t strike out a lot and draw a lot of walks. Their 12.2% BB% is the highest in the league this season and their 20.9% K% is the fifth-lowest.
The offense has hit the skids lately with an 82 wRC+ over the last two weeks, but they’re still running an 11% BB% with a 19.3% K%. They should rebound soon. They’ve only hit two homers in that span, which is the biggest reason why they rank so poorly. Even without the power production, they rank tied for 12th in runs scored over the last 14 days.
This doesn’t look like a good spot for Rodriguez from a pitch efficiency standpoint, dragging a relief corps that ranks 27th in ERA into the game for a lot of heavy lifting. Milwaukee’s bullpen is actually surprisingly average by their normal standards as well.
Pick: Over 8.5 (-108)
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