FanDuel SportsBook MLB Plays: Wednesday, June 19th
The dog days of summer are here. No NBA. No NFL. No NHL. The hot dog eating contest is still a few weeks away.
How will we pass this time? America’s favorite pastime. I’m going to break down two underdogs and one favorite on the MLB betting odds board that have value on FanDuel Sportsbook, so let’s get into it…
Kansas City Royals ML +116 – Casual bettors see a bad team in the Royals win a road game in Seattle and some will blindly assume that means the Mariners are due to bounce back – that’s not how it works. Today is a new day and the Royals continue to offer value on the road against a revamped (in a bad way) Mariners lineup. Seattle has been forced to turn to a light-hitting lineup with Jay Bruce and Edwin Encarnacion shipped out of town, leaving Daniel Vogelbach as one true power threat on this team. Brad Keller does a great job of limiting the long ball as it is and has done a decent job at limiting hard contact, so this should be a nice spot to turn to him in single-game DFS formats for those playing the 6:40 start. Kansas City’s offense sets up a little better against Marco Gonzalez given that they are throwing six righties at him with a nice combination of power and speed. This one should probably be a pick’em here so being able to get Kansas City at plus money while the Mariners attract the majority of the betting tickets sets up as a great contrarian spot.
Texas Rangers ML +102 – The Rangers were throttled last night by the Tribe and will throw a recent callup on the hill tonight, so the Indians opened as favorites with Adam Plutko on the mound. Plutko has done very little to inspire hope that he’ll have sustained success at the big-league level, but there are some nice nuggets on Rangers starter Joe Palumbo. He’s always been a strikeout arm in the minor leagues – he’s averaging 11.57 K/9 in AA and has hovered around that mark in lower levels as well. That certainly does not mean he’s going to come to the majors and blow hitters away (as evidenced by his first start), but it does give me some confidence against an Indians lineup that doesn’t boast a whole lot of power from the right side. Lindor, Santana and Ramirez are dangerous, but this draw sets up better than Palumbo’s debut against a lefty-mashing Athletics lineup. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the line continues to trend towards Texas as first pitch approaches.
Minnesota Twins ML -124 – If you bet this game last night and stayed up to watch the end, I’d imagine you’ve had a few cups of coffee today. Pitching has dominated the first two games of this series and it may very well do that again tonight. Eduardo Rodriguez is coming off a strong outing against Baltimore and has been somewhat unlucky this season with batted balls, but he’s squaring off with one of the toughest offenses in the league against LHP – the Twins rank 2nd in wRC+ and 5th in ISO against southpaws. Kyle Gibson has continued to change the narrative regarding his career year after year and is pitching like one of the best arms in the game in 2019. Fortunately for him, the Red Sox best bats lean right-handed, giving him a little bit of an edge there with Benintendi and Devers being the biggest threats from the left side. It also doesn’t hurt that the Twins have been the most profitable team to bet on at home this season, so taking the Twins at a short number is the play here.