MLB Odds, Picks, & Predictions for Today — Tuesday, August 17th
MLB betting analyst Sloan Piva peruses baseball odds every day to deliver his best bets. Keep reading to find his picks and predictions for the Blue Jays vs. Nationals and Reds at Cubs on Tuesday, August 17th.
I’m back, ya’ll! After a long weekend of Bachelor Party debauchery (and lots of golf) for my soon-to-be brother-in-law, I have returned from the depths of a mega-hangover to provide you with our Tuesday Bets of the Day.
It felt good to have a little break, but it feels even better to return to the grind. We especially enjoy coming back to a 52-38 season-long record on our Bets of the Day, as we have been crushing it all August.
Let’s dive right back in, and reveal our three favorite Bets for the Tuesday slate.
All odds are from BetMGM, and all stats are from MLB.com and Baseball Reference.
MLB Odds, Picks, & Predictions for Today
Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago Cubs
Pitching Matchup: Brandon Woodruff vs. Kyle Hendricks
Pick: Brewers -225
It’s slim pickings for this game on BetMGM and PointsBet, but Woodruff and the Brewers anywhere under -250 seems fine to me. A legitimate NL Cy Young candidate, the burly Milwaukee ace has been a sight to behold.
Woodruff enters today’s contest with a 2.23 ERA, 0.888 WHIP, and 160 strikeouts in 137.1 innings. He has allowed two runs or fewer in 17 of his 22 starts, and allowed three or fewer runs in all but two games. Opponents are collectively slashing .182/.241/.279 against him, while averaging an 84.9 mph average exit velocity. Batters make hard contact on Woodruff just 31.5 percent of the time his pitches are put into play.
Now Woodruff gets his fifth chance of 2021 to see the Cubs, and this time the division rivals are without three of their biggest offensive names from the past half-decade. No Rizzo, Bryant, or Baez means easier sledding for the 28-year old Cy Young contender, who has already gone 2-0 with an 0.72 ERA, 0.640 WHIP, and 10.9 K/9 against Chicago this season.
Kyle Hendricks has been very good for the Cubbies, with an MLB-leading 13 wins to go with a serviceable 3.68 ERA. But his WHIP is 1.292, his strikeout and whiff rates are way down, and he’s yield slash rates of .272/.316/.458. His BAbip is .299, tied for 14th-highest among the 56 starters who have pitched 110 innings.
This has all been one long-winded and nerdy way of saying I like Woodruff a lot, and the Brewers will get him his eighth win today. He and Hendricks deserve to swap win-loss records, honestly. Woodruff looks like prime Yu Darvish in 2013, while Hendricks looks like an older version of Jon Lester overachieving with wins. The simultaneous positive/negative record regression starts now for these two.
Toronto Blue Jays at Washington Nationals
Pitching Matchup: Alek Manoah vs. Erick Fedde
PICK: Blue Jays -1.5 (-135)
Since the All-Star break, two different AL teams have been the object of my betting fancy: the White Sox and the Blue Jays. Toronto has been raking since the second half of the season began, and the Jays’ rotation looks pretty studly, too. That includes rookie Alek Manoah, who had some bumps along the start of his MLB journey, but has been sailing smoothly since late June.
Manoah has allowed two or fewer earned runs in his past five starts, and he has gone six innings or more in three of those outings. He is 4-1 over his past five games, with 38 combined strikeouts across 28 total innings. The tall, lumbering 23-year old looks every bit the stud prospect pundits thought he was while he was coming up.
Speaking of that, Erick Fedde is who we thought he was: not good. The fifth-year Nats righty is 4-8 on the season, with a 5.12 ERA and 1.423 WHIP. Fedde has not won a game—in 10 tries—since June 12. He allowed or more runs on five of those occasions, and gave up a whopping six runs in two different July starts.
Juan Soto is essentially the last star left in DC, while Toronto has a plethora of budding superstars led by Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. I’m all over the Blue Jays here, and all over them on the ALCS odds board at +1700, too.
Cincinnati Reds vs. Chicago Cubs
Pitching Matchup: Kyle Hendricks vs. Vladimir Gutierrez
PICK: Reds -165
Another team I’ve been big on this season has been the Reds, who continue to compete despite setbacks, including injuries to All-Stars Nicholas Castellanos and Kyle Winker. Cincy seems like the little engine that can, while the Cubbies have thrown in the towel and lit it on fire with a can full of gas and a handful of matches.
Veteran Kyle Hendricks somehow finds himself near the top of the wins leaderboard at 13-5 this season, despite a bloated 4.15 ERA and 1.341 WHIP. No pitcher has allowed more hits (156) than Hendricks, whose slash line is a putrid .281/.325/.481.
Thus, I’ll be rolling with another rookie pitcher in Gutierrez, who flashes an 8-3 record with a 3.95 ERA and 1.331 WHIP in his debut year. The 25-year old Cuban does tend to issue a couple free passes per game, but he usually limits hard contact (35.9% hard-hit rate), and he allows an opponent average of .244.
The Reds remain legitimate NL contenders, while the Cubs have moved on to a rebuilding phase. I don’t trust the rookie to beat the veteran by two or more runs, but I would pound the Reds -165 moneyline.
Image Credit: Imagn