MLB Best Bets Today April 8
Strap in for a marathon day on the diamond, as our first game starts at 12:35 p.m. ET and our last game starts at 7:40 p.m. ET. We’ve got a variety of pitching matchups and a lot of getaway day games in anticipation of tomorrow’s six-game card. It’s not nearly as cold in a lot of places today as it was yesterday, so you’ll want to factor that into your handicap. There are still some very chilly games and that’ll just be a thing throughout the month, which could limit offensive upside for both teams.
As always, my focus is on giving readers enough lead time with my PT start time for the article, so I’m mostly just looking at the late afternoon and evening slate for the sake of today’s schedule.
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 available to everybody now, but will soon be 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 new MLB tools powered by Ballpark Pal: Strikeout Projections, Park Factors, and YRFI Report.
That’s a lot of coverage and we’ll be doing it all season long. We’re happy to have you along for the ride.
Here are the MLB best bets today for April 8:
Cincinnati Reds at Miami Marlins (-136, 7.5)
6:40 p.m. ET
This is not a getaway day game, as the Reds and Marlins will play that tomorrow at 12:10 p.m. ET. Instead, it’s a business as usual game for both squads, with Brady Singer on the bump for Cincy and Eury Perez for Miami.
It’s been a tough start to the season for both guys. Perez has allowed seven runs on seven hits and walked seven batters over 11 innings of work. He does have 12 strikeouts, but he had eight in his start against the Rockies, who are currently running a 28.1% K% with the league’s highest Chase Rate. The Reds have the third-lowest Chase Rate and are 19th in K% at 24.9%, but they’ve also walked more than 10% of the time.
Singer has allowed five runs on 11 hits over nine innings, but he could be doing a lot worse. So far, his Hard Hit% against is 67.9% with an average exit velo against of 98.9 mph. He’s already allowed four Barrels and that’s after allowing a career-high 9.4% Barrel% last season. His velo is down 1.1 mph on his sinker, a pitch that he throws 55.3% of the time right now. He’s using his slider less often, so he’s generating fewer chases. He’s still a sinker/slider guy over 90% of the time.
And that’s the thing with Perez, too. He was over 80% fastball/slider usage in his last start and over 75% in that start against the Rockies. There isn’t a lot of depth to either one of these arsenals, so hitters have the ability to lock in on pitches and sectors of the plate without worrying about getting surprised all that often.
The Reds bullpen is really up against it right now. Closer Emilio Pagan has pitched four of the last five days. Tony Santillan would be throwing for a fourth time in six days. It would be a 3-in-4 for southpaw Brock Burke, one of just two matchup lefties in the pen. Similarly, the Marlins have used their two highest-leverage arms, Calvin Faucher and Anthony Bender, three of the last four days and they’ve thrown a lot of pitches in that span.
I think we get some offense at loanDepot Park tonight, as we have two starters that are five-and-fly types, if Perez gets that far, and two bullpens that could be down some high-leverage arms.
Pick: Over 7.5 (-108)
Chicago Cubs at Tampa Bay Rays (-110, 8)
6:40 p.m. ET
We have what bettors have decided is a coin flip with vig game here, as the Rays took some overnight money to move from a dog to more or less a pick ‘em in this one. It will be Colin Rea vs. Joe Boyle, as Rea has suddenly become extremely important for Chicago with Cade Horton done for the year and Matthew Boyd on the IL.
Boyle has been one of the surprises of the early part of the season. He’s got a 97-99 mph fastball to rely on, but he’s become a slider/sweeper guy, basically flipping his usage patterns on their head. He’s thrown 34% sliders with great results and a big Whiff Rate. He’s thrown 21.2% four-seamers with an elite Whiff Rate. He’s also leveraging his splitter a little bit more with a sweeper that has improved as well. All of his spin rates are up and his Whiff% on a per-pitch basis are up as well. This is looking like another developmental win for the Rays.
Of course, a lot of their arms have ended up with severe injuries, so we’ll probably have to enjoy Boyle while we can, but the 6-foot-8 starter with above average Extension pumping upper 90s has a really exciting arsenal right now and is a major challenge for opposing offenses. So far this season, he’s got a 13/3 K/BB ratio and has allowed just seven hits in 11.1 innings of work. He’s also getting a start in pitcher-friendly Tropicana Field after starting the season with two roadies.
The 35-year-old Rea has only thrown 6.1 innings over two appearances, so this will be a Johnny Wholestaff type of game for the Cubs. He’s allowed three runs on eight hits with eight strikeouts against just one walk. He made 27 starts each of the last two seasons, so he’s definitely a guy that can stretch out and eat some innings for the Cubs. As a starter over the last three seasons since coming back from Asia, Rea has posted ERAs of 4.75, 4.61, and 4.33 while having HR/FB% marks of 17.2%, 15.3%, and 11.8%. He’s had some difficulties turning lineups over throughout the last three seasons.
We’ll see how far he can push, but Ben Brown threw 42 pitches on Sunday, so we’ll see if he’s the piggyback option or what. The Cubs pen has had a fairly light workload of late, but Rea ducking out in the fourth inning or something will put some strain on these guys.
Mason Englert wore one yesterday with 65 pitches in a spot start for the Rays and so did Yoendrys Gomez with 58 pitches, so that protected the high-leverage guys in the blowout loss. I’d expect the Rays to bounce back today and really like what I’ve seen from Boyle so far with no reason to believe it won’t continue.
This is also a fifth game in four days for the Cubs, who have had to deal with that Horton news and have tomorrow off before hosting the Pirates beginning Friday.
Pick: Rays -110
