MLB Best Bets Today June 13th

Greetings folks! Our usual baseball maestro Adam Burke is on vacation for a while, so while he is away I’ll be taking over daily MLB best bets. I tend to gravitate toward first five inning plays, so that will likely be the theme throughout the column over the next two weeks or so.

Despite Adam’s absence, the usual schedule of articles will remain. I’ll have daily best bets Monday-Saturday and I’ll write up the standalone preview for Sunday Night Baseball on Sundays.

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.

Here are the MLB Best Bets today for June 13th:

Anaheim Angels at Baltimore Orioles (-160, 10)

7:05 p.m. ET

There are some great pitching matchups on the card today, but this is not one of them. Having said that, we should get some offense at Camden Yards, so this game should be plenty entertaining.

Jack Kochanowicz gets the start for the Angels today, and he comes into this game in abysmal form. Kochanowicz has allowed exactly 4 ER in each of his last four starts. Over those 17.2 innings pitched he has 19 strikeouts to 11 walks. There is some bad luck in there – opponents have hit .407 on balls in play against him over this span – but his 6.08 FIP in those starts still shows us how poor he’s been.

On the surface, Charlie Morton is in no better shape. He comes into this start with a 6.59 ERA and 5.24 FIP. But, the veteran pitcher has been in much better form as of late. Over his last nine appearances – four of which are starts – Morton has a 3.69 ERA and a 3.96 FIP. He allowed 4 earned runs in 2.1 innings of work in Sacramento in his last start, but there is no denying he has bounced back from an abysmal start to the season. In this span he has struck out 23.7% of the hitters he’s faced and walked just 7.9%.

Morton isn’t the perfect pitcher, but he is in much better form than his counterpart in this contest. It should also be noted that the Orioles are finally starting to hit. Baltimore is 11th in wOBA since the start of the month (.322) and eighth in wRC+ (109). It has been a team which has been much more effective at home than on the road all season. Any lineup’s floor is raised by facing a pitcher like Kochanowicz, so it should be reasonable to expect a good showing from Baltimore’s offense tonight.

Pick: Orioles F5 -0.5 (-118)

San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers (-165, 7.5)

10:10 p.m. ET

It’s hard to stay away from what I call this low-hanging fruit wager. We get two dominant pitchers facing off with a low total. Seems too easy to play an under here, but that is exactly where I’m going with this one.

Logan Webb comes into this start in fantastic form. Webb has allowed just 2 earned runs in his last 14.0 innings of work. Over that span he has struck out 17 and walked none. In fact, Webb has allowed just one free pass over his last 24.0 innings of work. He’s walked just 4.8% of the hitters he has faced all season.

Webb’s road ERA is 3.95 and the Giants have lost his last four starts away from home. However, he has 2.17 FIP and 2.10 xFIP in road starts this season. Webb has struck out 31.4% of the hitters he’s faced on the road and walked just 5.9% of them. He has deserved a better fate in those outings, and it should be expected we get him in prime form tonight against this Dodgers lineup.

Meanwhile, Yoshinobu Yamamoto has not been as consistent. Over his last six starts Yamamoto has a 3.74 ERA and a 3.67 FIP. His strikeout rate has dipped over this stretch to 26.8% while he continues to have issues with command. Yamamoto is coming off a start against St. Louis in which he allowed 0 earned runs with 9 strikeouts over six innings, so we know he still has it in him. Against San Francisco’s lineup the old Yamamoto should be able to make an appearance.

The Giants are an average to below-average lineup. They rank 21st in wOBA (.304) and 19th in strikeout rate (22.7%). They are 21st and 28th in those categories on the road this season. Yamamoto should be able to hold down San Francisco’s offense in his start tonight.

All of this is to say that I believe the under is the play tonight in Los Angeles. Webb is in elite form and his splits on the road show some good signs. Yamamoto gets to face a lineup which has been subpar away from home. In order to avoid some of the bullpen shenanigans I like to whittle handicaps like this down to the first three innings and first five innings. So, let’s play some early totals and hope for a low-scoring affair in SoCal.

Picks: Giants/Dodgers F3 UN 1.5 (+140) and Giants/Dodgers F5 UN 4 (-130)