MLB Best Bets Today April 7:
Twenty-two MLB teams are in action on Monday, as we only have one afternoon game and it is a 3:10 p.m. ET start between the Yankees and Tigers. The rest of the card will be at night and that should mean cooler temperatures for the outdoor games, of which there are nine of them. The weather looks bad almost across the board.
We’re turning rotations over for a third time now, as nine starters are making their third starts today and Justin Steele is making his fourth. As both pitchers and hitters get more comfortable, we’ll have to see who sustains success, who finds some, who loses it, and what other trendlines we see emerging for the 2025 season.
Top MLB Resources:
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). This year, I intend to work in more props, derivatives, and maybe even some parlay bets to have a more diversified MLB portfolio and attack some different markets. What worked for me in the past has not worked as well the last two years, so I’m looking to make some changes and that includes my bet distribution by type and market.
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 April 7:
Minnesota Twins at Kansas City Royals (-120, 8)
7:40 p.m. ET
The Twins are back out on the road, as they’ll play their third road series out of four so far this season. It will be Simeon Woods Richardson on the hill against Michael Lorenzen, as the Royals stay home after taking two of three from the Orioles.
Woods Richardson displayed a new-look arsenal in his first outing against the White Sox. He dramatically increased his slider usage, leading to a 12.2% SwStr% and a higher Chase Rate than usual. He faced a right-handed-heavy lineup, which played a role, but the plan should be for him to leverage the slider and changeup more this season, as he’s reworked that pitch a little bit.
He gave up a lot of hard contact in that start and had some issues with his velocity, so we’ll see if that continues to be a problem. But, I think that the Twins are looking for some more strikeouts out of him this season. He did have a 20+% Whiff% on all four of his pitches last season, but you’d definitely like to see something higher than what he had on the slider and changeup last season. He threw 31 sliders with a 42.9% Whiff% in his first outing.
Lorenzen allowed an average exit velocity of 93.1 mph in his first start, as he allowed four runs on five hits over 5.1 innings. He walked three and struck out seven against the Brewers. Lorenzen has been a guy with reverse platoon splits throughout the last few seasons, meaning that righty vs. righty matchups have been problematic for him. I think that makes the Twins a bit of a tricky matchup.
Both bullpens have had some usage with their primary relievers lately, but this is just a price play for me. I think this game should be lined more like a 50/50 toss-up than where it currently sits. Lorenzen doesn’t have much separation from Woods Richardson, if at all, and I like the Twins lineup more.
Pick: Twins +100
Houston Astros at Seattle Mariners (-166, 7)
9:40 p.m. ET
Hayden Wesneski and Logan Gilbert are the listed starters here, as these two AL West rivals come together for the first of 13 meetings this season. Wesneski, who went to Houston in the Kyle Tucker deal with the Cubs, didn’t have a terribly impressive stat line, as he allowed three runs on two hits over five innings, but he did have six strikeouts to go with three walks and a hit by pitch.
I thought Wesneski’s pitch mix and stats were really interesting in his first outing. He threw 54.5% fastballs, a massive increase from what he did last season at 36%. He threw his sweeper nearly 41% of the time and it was a wildly successful pitch for him, as opponents batted .174 with a .348 SLG. Interestingly, we saw an uptick in his cutter usage as well.
The sweeper had a 43.3% Whiff% last season, but he threw it a lot less in that first start against the Giants. So, what truly stands out to me is that he had a 13.6% SwStr% and just an 18.9% Chase Rate with an 8% Called Strike rate. The Chase Rate and CStr% are both very low. And yet he still had six strikeouts. To me, that’s a suboptimal pitch mix for generating swings and misses, but that’s what he did.
So in tonight’s matchup, I feel like he’s going to have an adjusted pitch mix against a Seattle team that has been prone to swinging and missing quite a bit. Last year’s Mariners were 29th in Batting Runs against sliders/sweepers at -34.5 runs. Only the White Sox were worse. If Wesneski is going to have better life and better velocity and spin on his fastball, that should elevate every piece of his arsenal.
In other words, I like Wesneski Over 5.5 Strikeouts tonight against the Mariners. I feel like we saw the upgrades to his fastball on display and now he’s likely to use more sliders and sweepers given the matchup. And he had six strikeouts last time out.
Pick: Hayden Wesneski (HOU) Over 5.5 Strikeouts (-115)
Baltimore Orioles at Arizona Diamondbacks (-125, 8.5)
9:40 p.m. ET
We’ve got a Zach vs. Zac battle in this interleague tilt at Chase Field between Eflin and Gallen. Eflin comes in with a 3.75 ERA and a 4.34 FIP in his 12 innings of work, as he’s allowed five runs on 10 hits with a 7/1 K/BB ratio against familiar foes Boston and Toronto. Gallen has allowed four runs on seven hits over 10.2 innings with a 17/4 K/BB ratio, as he struck out 13 Yankees in his last outing.
But, let’s look further under the surface for these two guys. Let’s start with Eflin, who has Whiff% marks of 7.1% and 6.7% on his two most-used pitchers – the cutter and the sinker. He’s had some favorable batted ball results on both, but he’s allowed a 56.8% Hard Hit% overall and has not been getting a whole lot of chases outside the zone. He’s given up a double-digit Barrel% in two starts and has allowed exit velocities of 92.9 and 95.1 mph on those two pitches, not to mention how hard his sweeper has been hit.
Gallen continues to work his way around a lot of hard contact. He’s allowed a 41.7% Hard Hit% and a 12.5% Barrel% in his two starts so far. He has a .242 wOBA against with a .304 xwOBA, as the strikeouts have really saved him. Like Eflin, he has allowed a lot of hard contact on his two primary pitches. He’s allowed an average exit velo of 94.4 mph on his four-seamer and 100.7 mph on his knuckle curve, although there have only been three batted ball events because of all the strikeouts.
I don’t believe Gallen will find the same K% success against Baltimore. Also, he’s got just a 25% GB%, so he’s tempting fate in terms of having the ball elevated against him. Eflin’s GB% is also down over his first two starts. So is his strikeout rate and this is a very potent and dangerous Diamondbacks offense, even without Ketel Marte.
Games in Arizona averaged 10.7 runs per game last season, as Chase Field seems to be playing as a very good offensive park again. With two starters that have some major underlying concerns, I think we get some offense this evening, at least at the outset. Both bullpens miss a lot of bats, so I’m looking at the plus-money price early.
Pick: Orioles/Diamondbacks 1st 5 Over 4.5 (+110)
