MLB Best Bets Today June 6

Fifteen more Major League Baseball games will go into the standings today, as all 30 teams take the field heading into the weekend. At least that’s the hope, as a lot of places are potentially under the gun for weather. We also have an extremely hot day game in Tampa where the ball could end up carrying pretty well.

Except for that Marlins and Rays matchup, the rest of the games are at night, leaving us all kinds of time to handicap the card.

This article will run Monday-Saturday and I’ll write up a standalone preview for Sunday Night Baseball on Sundays. This year, we’ll also have MLB best bets from Greg Peterson posted with overnight lines.

My tracking sheet is here. For transparency sake, I also have tracking for my three MLB seasons at VSiN (2024, 2023, 2022).

Odds are from DraftKings Sportsbook because they are widely available to readers and because of some of our betting tools. I highly, highly, highly encourage you to shop around for the best lines. Sometimes they will be at DK. Oftentimes, they will not. Do what you can to shop around and get as much bang for your buck as possible.

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 6:

Arizona Diamondbacks (-118, 9.5) at Cincinnati Reds

7:10 p.m. ET

A couple southpaws square off here with Eduardo Rodriguez and Nick Lodolo in this one. The Diamondbacks really stole victory from the jaws of defeat yesterday. The Reds had a chance to lick their wounds after losing 9-1 on Wednesday to the Brewers.

Rodriguez is coming back from an IL stint off of a rehab outing at the Complex League in Arizona. He struck out nine of the 18 batters that he faced, but also gave up three homers to very, very young and inexperienced minor leaguers. Before hitting the IL, E-Rod had a 9.93 ERA over his five starts, including six home runs allowed. He gave up 28 runs total on 34 hits in that span. I’m not sure he’s going to suddenly come back and be ready and raring to go here in this one.

Lodolo enters with a 3.10 ERA and a 3.61 FIP. He does have a 4.07 xERA thanks to his depressed K% and a little spike in Hard Hit%. He’s still extremely stingy with the walks and this isn’t a bad matchup for him. The Diamondbacks are actually a below average offense against lefties with a 95 wRC+. They’ve done some serious damage against righties, but Lodolo’s a tough customer throwing with his left arm, so that’s a positive for the Reds.

Over the last 30 days, Arizona is 29th in bullpen ERA at 6.34. The Reds are 26th, but at 4.71. They stand out more from a FIP standpoint as well. I just can’t fathom Rodriguez as a favorite here based on what we saw before he hit the IL and the fact that Lodolo is such a strong starter.

Pick: Reds -102

Kansas City Royals (-155, 8) at Chicago White Sox

7:40 p.m. ET

The Royals and White Sox come together for some AL Central pleasantries to open up a three-game weekend set on the South Side. Seth Lugo gets the call for the road team and Davis Martin goes for the home team, as we are likely to get a ton of balls in play in this game.

Let’s start with Lugo, who just returned from missing 18 days with an injury. He enters this one with a 3.45 ERA, but a 5.04 xERA and a 4.86 FIP over 10 starts across 60 innings of work. Lugo’s HR/FB% has more than doubled from 7.4% to 16.2% and his ERA is being helped in a big way by an 82.4% LOB%. He’s a big-time negative regression candidate, as he has no business running a .248 BABIP or that high LOB%. His K% is the lowest of his career dating back to 2016 when he only threw 64 innings as a rookie. He’s at 18.8%, nearly a 3% drop from last season’s career year.

Lugo’s Hard Hit% is also a career-worst 45.5% and his Barrel% is up a bit from last season as well. I expected him to regress and while we haven’t seen it from an ERA standpoint, the advanced metrics are pointing towards it. The other thing here is that Lugo’s BB% is up a bit as well to 7.1%. He’s walked at least two batters in six of his 10 starts, including three free passes to the White Sox in his last start against them on May 6. The White Sox have an 11% BB% over the last 14 days and a 9.1% BB% against RHP over the last 30 days. I like Lugo Over 1.5 Walks Allowed at -110.

Next, we look at Martin, who has a bunch of regression signs of his own. He’s got a 3.67 ERA with a 5.76 xERA and a 4.46 FIP over his 68.2 innings of work. His K% sits at just 14.4%, a 7% drop from what he had last season. With more contact, he’s allowed a lot more hard contact, checking in with a 46.2% Hard Hit% and a 10.3% Barrel%, hence the really high xERA. He has a .325 wOBA against, but has a .382 xwOBA, which ranks in the bottom 7% of MLB. His xBA of .313 ranks in the bottom 3%. He doesn’t get swings and misses, doesn’t get chases, and allows a ton of hard contact.

So, both of these starters are significant regression candidates. Also, the White Sox bullpen isn’t very good and the Royals had to use six relievers on Tuesday and seven relievers yesterday because of a doubleheader. Along with the Lugo prop, I like Over 8 in this one. With that reliever usage, I also expect manager Matt Quatraro to push Lugo a bit farther and he could get fatigued, as he only threw 69 pitches in his first start back. With an off day on Monday, so an extra day between starts, Quatraro probably pushes the veteran.

Picks: Royals/White Sox Over 8 (-112); Seth Lugo (KC) Over 1.5 Walks Allowed (-110)

Atlanta Braves (-135, 7.5) at San Francisco Giants

10:15 p.m. ET

It had to be a long and miserable 4.5-hour flight for the Braves all the way out to San Francisco after what transpired yesterday. Set to take the series finale and avoid the sweep to finish off a 2-4 homestand, the Braves gave up seven runs in the ninth to blow a 10-4 lead and simply added yet another loss to the ledger.

Atlanta is playing outside of the Eastern Time Zone for the first time since April 30 tonight as they take on the Giants. It will be Spencer Schwellenbach looking to set the tone for Atlanta. The Braves right-hander seems to be back on track, as he’s struck out 11 in back-to-back starts. Schwellenbach had consecutive outings with just three strikeouts and was down significantly in the K% department before finding his swing-and-miss upside against the Padres and Red Sox.

He definitely hasn’t been as sharp this season as he was last season, but he looks to be rounding into form and draws a Giants lineup that is 28th in wOBA against RHP over the last 14 days and 24th over the last 30 days. He’s also pitching at Oracle Park, which is typically a nice place for pitchers.

The Giants will send out Hayden Birdsong, who joined the rotation full-time on May 20. In three starts, Birdsong has a 2.45 ERA with a 1.44 FIP and a 15/2 K/BB ratio in 14.2 innings of work. Atlanta’s offense has been underwhelming and disappointing throughout the season and Birdsong is throwing the ball well, while also maintaining his velocity even with the move from the bullpen to the rotation.

San Francisco has the top bullpen ERA in the league, so that is a nice feather in their caps, as the Giants have a 2.36 ERA with a 3.31 FIP for the full season. They are second in ERA over the last 14 days at 1.11 with a 2.44 FIP. They’ve been excellent.

Add all of that up and I’m expecting a low-scoring game here.

Pick: Braves/Giants Under 7.5 (-110)