MLB Best Bets Today October 5

The NL takes a break and the AL takes center stage, as we get just two Division Series games today. Yankees vs. Blue Jays is the early game and Tigers vs. Mariners is the late game. The Blue Jays came off the shelf and took a 1-0 series lead in blowout fashion, while Detroit won Game 1 and now has a chance to put the series in a chokehold with ace and presumptive back-to-back Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal on the mound.

The NL comes back tomorrow, as MLB opted to split the games up as much as they could in this best-of-five round.

Unlike yesterday, when all the home teams were favored, the road teams are laying prices in both games today.

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.

Here are the MLB best bets today for October 5:

Yankees (-156, 8.5) at Blue Jays

4:08 p.m. ET (FS1)

Four excellent arms will be on display today, but one of them is only making the fourth start of his MLB career and his first playoff start. That is Trey Yesavage, who gets the nod for the Blue Jays in the friendly confines of Rogers Centre. It is a huge moment for the 2024 first-rounder out of East Carolina, but he certainly has the stuff to pull him through.

In 14 MLB innings, he’s allowed five runs on 13 hits with a 16/7 K/BB ratio. For a player who didn’t pitch in pro ball in 2024, as the Jays opted to let him lay low after finishing his final season at ECU, the fact that he went from A-ball to the Majors is a testament to how highly the Blue Jays think of him. He had a 3.12 ERA with a 160/41 K/BB ratio in 98 minor league innings.

Yesavage did give up a ton of hard contact in those three starts with a Hard Hit% of 61.5%, but he only allowed three Barrels, as he posted a 53.8% GB%. He allowed eight homers in the minors out of 389 batters faced, but didn’t allow any at the MLB level, making starts against the Rays and Royals. Obviously the Yankees are a step up from those two groups.

Fried was simply outstanding in Game 1 of the Wild Card Round against the Red Sox, throwing 6.1 shutout innings with three walks and six strikeouts. The southpaw had a 2.86 ERA with a 3.40 xERA and a 3.07 FIP in his 32 starts over 195.1 innings. He’ll make his 14th career playoff start and 22nd career appearance here, coming in with a 4.66 ERA, 3.93 FIP, and 3.66 xFIP.

As you know, I’ve harped on power production in the playoffs and Fried only allowed 14 homers in 195.1 innings of work. Toronto hit three solo homers in Game 1, but scored seven runs without the long ball, a testament to their ability to put balls in play. Luke Weaver had his second ugly outing of the playoffs and Paul Blackburn was terrible in a mop-up capacity. It was a 2-1 game through six and the Jays seemed to get a shot of life from Louie Varland striking out Giancarlo Stanton with the bases loaded in the sixth when New York scored their lone run.

John Schneider did a good job getting Jeff Hoffman and Seranthony Dominguez into the game, but others are yet another day removed from pitching. With what ended up being a blowout, Aaron Boone didn’t have to use David Bednar or Devin Williams, which was a positive.

Rogers Centre was one of the better venues for hitting ground balls, ranking fifth in BA and fourth in BA-xBA, with an expected batting average of .250 and an actual BA of .260. Opposing batters only hit .220 on 286 ground balls in play against Fried. Yesavage surrendered a .409 BA on 22 ground balls.

Rather than look at the side or total here, I’ll give Max Fried Over 5.5 Hits Allowed at +112 a shot here. Fried faced Toronto four times in the regular season and stayed Under this number twice and went Over this number twice. I’d expect Boone to want length from him here, even though he did have that velocity drop late in his Game 1 start against Boston.

Toronto’s 18.6% K% against lefties was the second-lowest in the league and their .264 BA was third. They batted .275 against LHP at home and had just a 17.2% K%. So, I’d expect aggressive swings today.

As far as the side, still lean Yankees, since Yesavage is a huge unknown, but the price is a bit steep on NY.

Pick: Max Fried (NYY) Over 5.5 Hits Allowed (+112)

Tigers (-158, 5.5) at Mariners

8:03 p.m. ET (FS1)

A lot of Tarik Skubal love hit the market this morning, as the Tigers took down Game 1 in a thriller last night and now can take control of the series in a big way heading back home for Tuesday’s Game 3. Skubal is neck and neck with Paul Skenes in the race for best pitcher on the planet and he has a huge opportunity today.

Skubal struck out 14 in his Game 1 start against Cleveland in the Wild Card Round over 7.2 innings of work. He’s pitching on the fifth day, which is how things traditionally used to be, but really aren’t anymore, as teams are trying to protect their arms as much as possible and many guys get five days of rest. Skubal did pitch the earliest game on Tuesday, for whatever that’s worth.

The devastating southpaw did give up a run on three hits, but it was one of those “GuardsBall” runs where the ball doesn’t really leave the infield. Seattle is a much more dangerous offense, but Skubal ran a 2.21 ERA with a 2.74 xERA and a 2.45 FIP, with his ERA and FIP both better than what he had last season when he won his first Cy Young Award.

He did allow 17 of his 18 homers to righties and the Mariners will be able to throw a lot of those at him. He also allowed nine homers in the second half in 74.1 innings compared to nine homers in 121 innings in the first half. So, Seattle could make some hay on the offensive side by hitting one or two of Skubal’s rare mistakes out of the yard.

This season, Skubal made eight of his 31 starts on four days rest. He allowed a .173/.224/.291 slash and pitched to a 2.58 ERA with a 76/10 K/BB ratio over 52.1 innings. Even though you’d like to see him a little more rested, as he allowed 38 runs in 23 starts on 5+ days rest and 17 runs in eight starts on four days rest, he’s an elite dude.

This will be Luis Castillo’s fourth career postseason start and he’s been terrific in the first three, posting a 1.83 ERA with a 2.83 FIP. He’s allowed four runs on 17 hits with a 19/1 K/BB ratio out of 77 batters faced. Castillo also gets the luxury of pitching at T-Mobile Park, where he had a 2.60 ERA with a .192/.257/.323 slash and a .258 wOBA compared to a 4.71 ERA with a .302/.342/.491 slash and a .356 wOBA.

Castillo was fortunate to have 20 more innings at home compared to on the road. And while he had huge lefty/righty splits, a lot of that was because of what lefties did to him on the road. They batted .346/.392/.566, but only .216/.310/.375 at home.

Seattle only posted a .291 wOBA at home against lefties this season, so you can see why the Tigers are getting the love here. Skubal has a tremendously high ceiling. But, I also think Castillo can hold his own here. While he struggled in August, he found a second wind in September and had a 2.45 ERA with just a .203 wOBA against over 29.1 innings.

I also worry a bit about the Tigers bullpen whenever Skubal has to exit the game. Will Vest worked two innings yesterday and has thrown 56 high-stress pitches in the last five days. Kyle Finnegan and Tyler Holton have worked three of the last four days. The Tigers bullpen does pound the strike zone and all of them had efficient outings, throwing no more than 19 pitches and that was Vest over two frames.

Seattle’s pen got thrown into the first quickly with six relievers deployed and closer Andres Munoz threw 25 pitches to lead all relievers.

It’s a total of 5.5 with a favorite north of -155. We’ve only seen 10 games with this total and line combo outside of 2021 doubleheaders that were only set to go seven innings per the Killer Sports database. I’ll give the Mariners a shot for that reason.

Pick: Mariners +129