MLB Best Bets Today October 16
The Wednesday night standalone ALCS game lacked drama, though it was certainly a fun one for Blue Jays fans, as they climbed back into the series with a 13-4 win in Seattle. Home-field advantage hasn’t mattered much thus far in the postseason, so we’ll see if that changes tonight with both series in action.
Brewers vs. Dodgers is the first game at 6:08 p.m. ET and Blue Jays vs. Mariners could overlap with an 8:33 p.m. ET first pitch because Major League Baseball is absolutely terrible at marketing its own sport.
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 16:
Brewers at Dodgers (-199, 7.5)
6:08 p.m. ET (TBS/truTV/HBO Max)
As of 6:30 a.m. PT this morning, we knew that Tyler Glasnow would get the start for the Dodgers, but we didn’t know who would start for the Brewers. With Wednesday’s off day, pretty much everybody is available except for Game 2 starter Freddy Peralta and Game 1 bulker Quinn Priester. Jacob Misiorowski isn’t on the same amount of rest that he was in his previous appearances, but this is a must-win type of game for the Brewers, so they may need to embrace the slight risk here.
Misiorowski threw 54 pitches on Saturday, so he’s only a day ahead of the previous schedule he was kept to and he’s a big departure from a southpaw like Jose Quintana, so I could see those being options. The Dodgers have batted .273/.400/.500 in this series, despite Brewers manager Pat Murphy’s comments that his pitching staff has performed well holding the Dodgers to just seven runs in two games.
LA was 1-for-10 with RISP in Game 1 and drew eight walks to go with seven hits. They just missed the big blow. They had 11 hits and drew four more walks in Game 2. So, I disagree with Murphy’s assessment. The Dodgers also have nine extra-base hits. Milwaukee has two. I would venture to say that Misiorowski is his best option today because he’s got some of the best pure stuff on the team and stuff is your best chance against the Dodgers.
Glasnow hasn’t allowed a run in two postseason appearances, including a six-inning start last time out with eight strikeouts against a couple hits and three walks in the Game 4 clincher against the Phillies. Like a handful of other Dodgers pitchers, Glasnow was limited due to injury in the regular season, throwing 90.1 innings with a 3.19 ERA, 3.25 xERA, and a 3.76 FIP. He has walked five of the 31 batters that he has faced, so the Brewers need to stay patient, but Glasnow also had an 80/20 K/BB ratio in 61.2 innings at home during the regular season.
The Brewers are batting .086/.143/.155 in this series with 18 strikeouts against four walks. LA has only been forced to use two relievers in Roki Sasaki and Blake Treinen, as they’ve gotten 17 innings from Blake Snell and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have seen everybody except Quintana and Misiorowski.
Travis Sawchik had an eye-opening tweet during the Wild Card Round of the playoffs.
As you see relievers more, pick up their arm slots and tendencies, and as they get a little fatigued, they are far less effective. The Dodgers have such an enormous advantage for however long this series goes because they haven’t exposed their bullpen at all, even if those guys get a little bit rusty from not being used.
Generally speaking, I don’t like laying the run line on a home team because they’re likely to only have eight chances to score runs as opposed to nine, but Glasnow and an unexposed bullpen should keep doing what the Dodgers have been doing and this offense, even with a nothing burger from Shohei Ohtani in the postseason, is locked in.
Pick: Dodgers Run Line -1.5 (+107)
Blue Jays at Mariners (-127, 7.5)
8:33 p.m. ET (FS1)
Max Scherzer makes what could be the final MLB start of his career here in Game 4 against Luis Castillo. Scherzer was not remotely effective this season, posting a 5.19 ERA with a 4.78 xERA and a 4.99 FIP over 85 innings of work. He gave up 19 homers in just 17 starts, only had six quality starts, and allowed a career-worst 12.4% Barrel% with the lowest SwStr% (10.7%) that he’s had since 2011.
Home/road splits be damned, I’d have set up Chris Bassitt to start this game instead of Scherzer. Of course, the Mariners were up against it in Game 1 and had to use Bryce Miller, who bobbed and weaved through six innings on the heels of a really bad regular season. Scherzer’s spin rates really weren’t much different from previous seasons and his velo ticked back up a little from last season, but he just hasn’t been as effective.
I don’t know what we can reasonably expect out of Scherzer today, as he hasn’t pitched since September 24. I also don’t know what to expect from the Toronto offense, as they struggled through two home games, where they scored 5.32 R/G and had 23 runs in two games in the ALDS, but then had an explosion at pitcher-friendly T-Mobile Park off of George Kirby and the Seattle bullpen.
It will be up to Luis Castillo, the winning pitcher in Game 5 against the Tigers, to shut down this potent ballclub. He’s allowed one hit over his six playoff innings with four strikeouts against four walks. He hasn’t allowed a run yet. Castillo allowed a 46.4% Hard Hit% and a 10.4% Barrel% this season, which were both career-worsts. His K% of 21.7% as also the lowest of his career. Against a lineup like Toronto’s that seems problematic, especially because their bat speed uptick year over year is perfect for facing a hard-thrower like Castillo, even if his average velocity dropped for the sixth straight season.
The only Statcast Rankings that Castillo was above average in were BB%, Chase%, and Fastball Velo. Toronto isn’t really interested in walking and they don’t chase much. Castillo did post a 45th percentile GB%, but he also surrendered a lot of hard contact.
Maybe Scherzer surprises me here. Maybe Castillo is better than expected. But, both teams have jumped on the starters in this series and now there’s a lot more familiarity with the relievers, relative to that tweet I shared up above.
I’ll roll with the Over in this one and hope that Toronto’s batted ball luck continues its positive trend and that the Mariners are also to hit some homers off of Scherzer.
Pick: Over 7.5 Runs (-105)
