MLB Best Bets for Today: It Ain't Over 'Til It's Under (Friday, July 26th)
MLB Best Bets for today’s action! This article will highlight one game-related total and one player prop under for Friday’s games. Unders are underrated, and we’ll be taking advantage of that edge. Sit back and enjoy the sweat!
Last Week’s Results
We split the picks last week. Hunter Brown dominated again and Luis Castillo did enough to keep the first 5 innings total under 4. Corbin Burnes managed to get over his strikeout prop by 1 K. We reached double-digit wins this season for both the game and prop picks. It’s been a solid stretch, but I would like to push the win rate comfortably over 60%.
Season Record
- Game Picks: 10-6-1
- Prop Picks: 10-7
Seattle Mariners vs. Chicago White Sox First 5 Innings Under 4 (-140 on BetMGM)
I will continue to pick on the Mariners and White Sox. Both offenses have been dreadful, and this is a strong pitching matchup.
George Kirby had a weird blip in late May, allowing 5 ERs in back-to-back starts, but he’s since been dominant for 2 months. He has quality starts in 9 of his last 10 appearances and has allowed more than 2 ERs just once in that stretch. Now, he gets to face the worst offense in baseball by a decent margin. The White Sox are dead last in OPS, wOBA, and wRC+ against righties in July, and it’s not particularly close.
Drew Thorpe has been on a nice run of his own. He got rocked for 7 ERs in the 2nd outing of his career but has now rattled off 5 straight quality starts. He’s limited opponents to just 13 hits in 30.1 IP over that span. Thorpe has excelled at limited hard contact in his brief MLB tenure, ranking 96th percentile in average exit velocity and 86th percentile in hard-hit rate. The strikeouts have been underwhelming, but the matchup can help there.
Seattle has been a bottom-5 offense against righties in July, and they’re striking out at a league-leading 29.6% rate. The Mariners are hitting an egregious .193 vs. RHP this month. Even the White Sox have a batting average of over .200.
Andrew Heaney Under 2.5 Earned Runs Allowed (-115 on DraftKings)
This is another one of those unders that’s actually a positive thing. I’m backing Heaney a couple of ways today, and the ERs prop is an intriguing situation when you consider the other lines.
Toronto’s first 5 innings team total is 1.5 (-154/+120) on DraftKings. Heaney’s earned runs allowed prop is 2.5 (-115/-115). This gap is fairly typical since the starting pitcher can obviously pitch beyond 5 innings, but the books don’t seem to expect Heaney to do that. His outs prop on DraftKings is 15.5 (+115/-160). Heavy juice to the under, and it makes sense. He’s gone 5.1 IP or less in 4 of his last 5 starts. He’s averaged under 90 pitches per start since the beginning of June, and Toronto is tied for 6th in pitches seen per plate appearance.
After posting a 6.26 ERA in April, Heaney has allowed 3 ERs or less in 15 consecutive starts. He recently started throwing the harder, tighter version of his slider we saw in his massive 2022 campaign. The velocity on the pitch has been up about 2 mph over his last 4 starts, and he’s posted an elite 28.3% K% in that stretch.
Heaney’s been excellent in terms of run prevention, even with moderate strikeout numbers, so a sustained increase in K% would be icing on the cake.
Heaney has been pitching well, and if he is likely to be capped at 5 IP, I don’t think his ERs prop should be much different than Toronto’s F5 team total.
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