MLB Best Bets Today June 9

Nine night games are on the card for Monday, as we kick off another week of the MLB season. It is a light night for the American League, as only five seven of their 15 teams are in action, while we’ve got 11 of the 15 NL squads. Since the Rockies are one of today’s teams not on the board, we don’t have a single favorite higher than -160ish this morning as everybody digs into the slate.

The Marlins vs. Pirates matchup looks threatened by rain and thunderstorms, but the other games have no notable weather concerns and no noteworthy winds.

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 9:

Atlanta Braves (-152, 7.5) at Milwaukee Brewers

7:40 p.m. ET

Chris Sale and Aaron Civale are the listed starters as the Braves and Brewers fire up a weekday set at AmFam Field. Life has been pretty brutal for Atlanta recently, as they’ve found all sorts of ways to lose games, but now they turn to their ace and the reigning Cy Young Award winner in hopes of getting back on track.

The Brewers turn to Civale, who had a rough 2025 debut against the Yankees with five runs allowed, including three homers, in just three innings. Then he hit the IL. Since coming back, he’s allowed five runs on 14 hits in 14.1 innings with 12 strikeouts against just four walks. In those three outings, Civale has only allowed a 31% Hard Hit% and one Barrel. He’s allowed a sub-85 mph exit velocity against the Pirates, Red Sox, and Reds. He’s also had back-to-back outings with a double-digit SwStr%, including a 14% mark against the Reds last time out.

As much as the bullpen has been to blame for the Braves, they’re also 25th in wOBA at .286 against RHP over the last 14 days with a .215/.305/.329 slash. Their 10.4% BB% is solid, but Civale is typically stingy with the walks, so I don’t think it’s quite as helpful here.

I like Civale Under 2.5 Earned Runs here. He went 5.1 innings last time out on 86 pitches, so he appears to be fully stretched out. I just like the way he’s throwing the ball right now and he’s been mixing his pitches really effectively. He’s inducing a ton of weak, harmless aerial contact and it seems like the things that he worked on in the offseason have taken hold.

Another player prop I’m looking at here is Sale Over 1.5 Walks. The Brewers are batting .277/.341/.431 against lefties over the last 30 days. They only have a 7.8% BB% in that span, but they are sixth overall in BB% at 9.3%, so they are willing to be patient and take walks. Sale has gone Over 1.5 walks in five of his last six starts and eight of his last 10. The stuff is terrific, but can be tricky to harness at times. Also, he’s worked at least six innings in six of his last seven starts, so he’s been working deep into games, which means more batters with the potential to draw a free pass.

Picks: Chris Sale (ATL) Over 1.5 Walks Allowed (-120); Aaron Civale (MIL) Under 2.5 Earned Runs Allowed (-110)

Toronto Blue Jays at St. Louis Cardinals (-115, 8.5)

7:45 p.m. ET

A game for the birds is set for Busch Stadium tonight, as the Blue Jays and Cardinals battle it out. Jose Berrios gets the call for Toronto and Andre Pallante will go for St. Louis. Berrios was awful in his first 2025 start with six runs allowed on nine hits against the Orioles. He has a 3.67 ERA with a 4.41 FIP on the year. But, if you take away that first start, he has a 3.17 ERA with a 4.01 FIP. Sample sizes are getting larger, but removing one bad start can still have a big impact.

Berrios allowed four Barrels in that first start, and while his contact management metrics still aren’t stellar, the Cardinals are 26th in Barrel% and 27th in HR/FB%. Those are the two biggest issues in Berrios’ profile – the long ball and a double-digit Barrel%. They shouldn’t be as big of a worry here.

Pallante has a 4.91 ERA with a 4.95 FIP. His biggest attribute is a 63.4% GB%, which does make it tough to string hits together at times, but he’s got a 5.80 ERA over his last 49.2 innings covering nine starts. He’s still given up nine home runs in that span, despite a 61.8% GB%. He misses very few bats and the Blue Jays don’t swing and miss much anyway.

Over the last 14 days, Toronto has a .342 wOBA against RHP, which ranks seventh. They have just an 11.7% K% in that split, so they’ve done a really good job of putting balls in play and have also done so with authority. 

Also, over the last 14 days, the Blue Jays bullpen has a 1.76 ERA with a 2.80 FIP, as they’ve really stabilized and performed well after some major hiccups. I have what I think is the better bullpen, better offense, and better starter. That’s good enough for me.

Pick: Blue Jays -105