One team looks to stay alive tonight and two teams look to win a very important Game 5. In other words, the only team not facing much pressure is the Dodgers, who would obviously like to finish off the sweep of the Brewers, but they do have two cracks at home to avoid a return flight to MKE.

The earlier game has all the drama, as the home team is 0-4 in the series, setting up an opportunity for the Blue Jays, who trailed 2-0 in the series, to sweep the three games in Seattle and have a chance to finish off the series at home. It should be a fascinating night of baseball.

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 October 17:

Blue Jays (-116, 7) at Mariners

6:08 p.m. ET (FS1)

Mad Max lived up to the moniker last night, as Scherzer turned back the clock and turned back his manager to help pitch the Blue Jays to a 2-2 tie in the series. Of course, the offense helped, too, racking up eight runs. They have now scored 21 runs in the two games at T-Mobile Park after scoring just four runs in the two games at home. Playoff variance is alive and well.

Kevin Gausman gets the call tonight against Game 1 hero Bryce Miller. Gausman has allowed three runs on seven hits with an 8/3 K/BB ratio in his 11.1 playoff innings thus far. Some believe he was pulled too early in his Game 1 outing, as Cal Raleigh homered to tie the game and then Gausman walked Julio Rodriguez. Manager John Schneider went to the bullpen and the Blue Jays trailed a wild pitch and a single later.

I’ll admit, it was a questionable move, but Schneider wanted to turn Jorge Polanco around and it backfired. Gausman had a 4.75 ERA the third time through the order, but that was seemingly more of a byproduct of inherited runners scoring. He allowed a .268 wOBA the first time through, .277 the second time, and .279 the third time, so the TTO penalty wasn’t really an issue for him.

Gausman was really good at home but really great on the road. He allowed just a .195/.260/.313 slash with a .253 wOBA in 97.1 innings of work. Only Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Nathan Eovaldi, Tarik Skubal, and Paul Skenes allowed lower wOBAs on the road. That’s some okay company. This will be a much different environment for Gausman than a regular season road start, but he’s had no issues adjusting to different mounds and settings.

Because of a 15-inning marathon to close out the series against the Tigers, Seattle had to turn to Miller on short rest in Game 1. All he did was throw six innings of one-run ball with two hits allowed. He’s back on regular rest here, but he is coming off of a season in which he posted a 5.68 ERA with a 5.32 xERA and a 5.17 FIP in 90.1 innings of work. He gave up 17 HR in those 18 starts compared to 21 HR in 31 starts and 180.1 innings in 2024.

Even at home, Miller struggled, posting a .262/.328/.494 slash against with a .351 wOBA. He gave up 10 of his 17 homers there. That’s a far cry from 2024 when he allowed a .179/.235/.282 slash with a .229 wOBA and just six homers in more than double the innings. That guy is still in there somewhere, and maybe he’ll show up again in this game.

I, however, will be on the Blue Jays. Toronto had eight hard-hit balls against Miller in Game 1 with a home run, a single, and six outs. Three of the outs came on batted balls with a xBA of .500 or higher. While Miller’s velo was up across the board, he only had eight Whiffs in 40 swings. That was 40 swings on 76 pitches, so the Blue Jays were aggressive, as they usually are.

The line is moving in the Blue Jays’ favor and I agree. Both bullpens are in fine shape with back-to-back blowouts and, frankly, blowouts in the last three games. Toronto’s offense has come alive and Seattle’s has gone in the tank. Gausman is a tough guy to break out against. Honestly, outside of the 10-run explosion in Game 2, the Mariners have only scored nine runs in the other three games. With Miller on the mound, that type of output might not be enough.

Shop around. I’ve used DraftKings odds all season for MLB write-ups, but better prices are available out there.

Pick: Blue Jays -116

Brewers at Dodgers (-206, 7.5)

8:38 p.m. ET (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)

Shohei Ohtani hasn’t done much at the plate in the playoffs, but he has the chance to redeem himself on the mound tonight. He’ll get the ball in Game 4 as the Dodgers look for a sweep of the Brewers. As usual, Milwaukee’s starter is a mystery, though southpaw Jose Quintana is expected to bulk relieve in some capacity. Jacob Misiorowski was simply stellar, throwing 73 pitches in relief yesterday, but the offense faltered in the 3-1 loss.

To make matters worse, Jackson Chourio came up lame with the hamstring that has been bugging him in the postseason and was replaced in the seventh. He said postgame that it was a cramp and he plans to play, so we’ll see. The Brewers offense has cramped up in this series to say the least, batting .101/.165/.180 over the three games. Pitchers hit .108/.147/.137 in 2021, the last season without the universal DH.

And now the Brewers have to solve Ohtani, who had a 2.87 ERA with a 2.45 xERA and a 1.90 FIP while wearing training wheels to the mound for a good chunk of the season. Ohtani didn’t pitch all of 2024 recovering from another Tommy John surgery. He went six innings in his start against the Phillies with three runs allowed on three hits. He struck out nine of the 23 batters that he faced. All the damage came in one inning, as the Phillies went BB, 1B, 3B, GO, SF, K. Ohtani struck out seven over the next four scoreless innings.

The Dodgers got 5.2 innings from Tyler Glasnow and have now gotten 22.2 innings from their starters. The Brewers saw Alex Vesia and Anthony Banda for the first time in this series and got their second looks at Roki Sasaki and Blake Treinen. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have already had three looks at Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby. Misiorowski is unavailable tonight. They’ve seen Jared Koenig twice.

I posted that Travis Sawchik tweet yesterday about how relievers get less effective the more often they are seen. I do think Sasaki is unavailable tonight for the Dodgers, as he hasn’t pitched back-to-back days yet and I don’t think the Dodgers would go to him with a 3-0 series lead. But, they have several arms they can go to that Milwaukee hasn’t seen yet.

I think this series is over tonight. The Dodgers are an older team, as eight of their nine regulars are over 30. A little extra downtime probably sounds good to them. They should be able to end this thing tonight and I’ll go with the run line price again given how much they’ve shut down Milwaukee’s offense. I typically don’t like the -1.5 on the home team because they’re likely to only hit eight times, and it was nearly a factor last night, but without Misiorowski, the Brewers don’t have overpowering stuff for the middle innings today.

Oh, and I’d also bet ‘Yes’ on a lockout in 2027.

Pick: Dodgers Run Line -1.5 (+108)

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