MLB Best Bets Today July 11
With just two days left until the All-Star Break, we are hoping to see a full slate of games, including a 16th on the schedule thanks to the “rain”out in Pittsburgh. Baltimore and Cincinnati seem to have the biggest potential weather impacts as we look ahead to today’s action. There are a lot of players hurt around the league, including some significant batters and pitchers, so keep that in mind, as some teams may even err on the side of caution with some of their players, especially those who are participating in Monday and Tuesday’s festivities in Philly.
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 MLB tools powered by Ballpark Pal: Strikeout Projections, Park Factors, and YRFI Report.
Here are the MLB best bets today for July 11:
Mariners vs. Rays Prediction
Pick: Mariners 1st 5 -115
We have a good pitching matchup at The Trop tonight, as the Mariners and Rays exchange pleasantries again this evening. It will be big man Logan Gilbert for Seattle and reliever-turned-starter Griffin Jax for Tampa Bay, as an interesting first half for both teams nears the end. Seattle is not where they thought they’d be. Tampa Bay probably isn’t either, but they’ve been exceeding expectations at every turn.
Jax has been exceeding expectations as well, but I am worried about him here. For the season, Jax owns a 3.60 ERA with a 5.12 xERA and a 4.48 FIP over 65 innings of work. He’s been starting games since April 26 and has gradually worked his way up to reliably throwing five innings. He even struck out 10 of the 18 batters he faced last time out.
Since moving into the rotation, Jax has a 2.89 ERA, but it comes with a 4.87 xERA. He’s given up nine homers in 56 innings and his recent contact management numbers concern me greatly. Over his last seven starts, Jax has a 3.60 ERA, but a 5.83 xERA because he’s allowed a ton of hard contact and eight home runs. He’s given up a 47.2% Hard Hit% and 14 Barrels, making up a 15.7% Barrel%. While the traditional stats look favorably upon him, he’s in the 17th percentile in xERA, 16th in xBA, and 10th percentile in Barrel%. His .315 wOBA comes with a .346 xwOBA. The 31-year-old has thrown 994 pitches so far. He threw 1,093 last season, 1,068 the season prior, and 1,047 two seasons ago. The workload likely catches up with him soon and this will be his first start since getting a full workload on the traditional four days rest for a starting pitcher.
Gilbert has a 3.19 ERA with a 3.62 xERA and a 3.43 FIP on the season, as he continues to sport spectacular K/BB numbers. He’s given up 14 homers, but only one in his last five starts and only three in his last eight starts. It has been an odd season for Gilbert, in that he has a 1.73 ERA with a .196/.235/.281 slash on the road. He has only allowed one homer on the road in 41.2 innings, but 13 HR at home in 65.2 innings.
After a rough start to the season with a .277/.325/.453 slash in Mar/Apr, he has limited opposing batters to a .176/.233/.407 in May and a .171/.225/.297 in June. He gave up one hit in his lone July start.
Gilbert’s trend line looks great. I’m very worried about Jax long-term and especially today with just four days rest.
Red Sox vs. Mets Prediction
Pick: Red Sox +134
The Red Sox have organized a bullpen game here for the middle game of the set against the Mets. Boston’s recent run of strong play started when they were returning from Denver and had flight issues that forced them to land in Boston at about 5:30 a.m. ET with Cam Schlittler and the Yankees on tap that night. Boston was 32-46 heading into that game. They are 44-48 now and have gained plenty of ground in the wild card race.
Boston didn’t get to LaGuardia yesterday until a few hours before game time and rallied for a 6-2 win against another tough customer in Nolan McLean. Today, they’ll face Freddy Peralta, whose future with the Mets is in doubt as an impending free agent. Maybe some of those things are on Peralta’s mind, as he has a 4.68 ERA with a 3.78 xERA and a 4.29 FIP over 100 innings of work.
Over his last nine starts, he has a 6.31 ERA and a 4.57 FIP. While he does have a 3.50 xERA in that span due to a low Barrel%, he has a 60.8% LOB% and a .364 BABIP against. He hasn’t had great command and also hasn’t done a good job of pitching out of trouble. In that span, he’s allowed at least three runs in seven of nine starts, including one blow-up against the Phillies with a 10-spot.
Eduardo Rivera gets the call tonight in a bullpen game for the Sox. He has a 2.44 ERA with 62 strikeouts in 48 innings at the minor league level as primarily a multi-inning reliever. His longest outing of 5.2 innings came back in April, so I doubt we’ll see that, but he should be able to go two or three innings before giving way to others. Rivera is a 6-foot-7, over-the-top southpaw with some pretty filthy stuff. He made his MLB debut earlier this season and worked 3.1 innings with three strikeouts and just one hit allowed to the Yankees over 10 batters faced.
Qualitatively, I think this is a spot where the Red Sox are still locked in and focused and the Mets are looking ahead to the All-Star Break. Both teams have had a lot of drama this season, but one is overcoming it and the other is not. The Mets are also going to see a bunch of different arm slots and release points today, which may make hitting very tough.
Braves vs. Cardinals Prediction
Pick: Braves -107
It was a late night for both teams on Friday, as a long rain delay and flooded dugouts forced the completion of the series opener after midnight. Both teams are back to work this evening in a matchup between Reynaldo Lopez and Matthew Liberatore.
Lopez has been solid this season for Atlanta and recently got bumped back into the rotation, posting a 2.08 ERA with a 3.76 xERA and a 2.95 FIP over 13 innings of work. He’s struck out 12, walked three, given up just one run per outing, and has held opponents to just a 31.4% Hard Hit%. From a stuff standpoint, it sure seems like he was at his best two outings ago against the Cardinals with a 17.4% SwStr% and a 42.2% Chase Rate. The Cardinals are 28th with a .267 wOBA in their last 298 PA against RHP covering the last 14 days.
It’s been a rough season for Liberatore, who has a 5.34 ERA with a 5.48 xERA and a 5.09 FIP over his 87.2 innings of work. It’s been even tougher recently with a 7.71 ERA over his last six starts. Ironically, his lone good start in that span came against Atlanta when he allowed one run on one hit over five innings with nine strikeouts. He did walk four, though, so maybe that’s a silver lining for the Braves bats.
In that span, Liberatore has allowed nine Barrels and it’ll be a warm and humid night in St. Louis, so the ball should carry. He’s become a very extreme fly ball guy and that’s certainly dangerous in the summertime, even at Busch Stadium. The Braves have had their issues against LHP, so we’ll see if Liberatore can pull another rabbit out of his hat and have a good game here, but I’m skeptical.
If nothing else, both top leverage arms in the Braves bullpen are fine, whereas the Cardinals used their guys last night, including JoJo Romero for the third time in four games.
