MLB Best Bets Today May 26

A big day on the diamond for the Memorial Day holiday features a whole lot of afternoon baseball. In all, 24 of the league’s 30 teams take the field on the unofficial kickoff to summer for most people, as we technically still have to wait until June 21 for the actual day.

Nevertheless, even though the weather is warming up, Ballpark Pal noted on X this morning that Saturday and Sunday had the fewest home runs per game for days where there were 15 games featuring all 30 teams. Surprising to say the least, so we’ll see if that trend continues or if the warmer weather helps the bats a bit more as we approach June.

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 May 26:

Pittsburgh Pirates at Arizona Diamondbacks (-192, 9.5)

8:10 p.m. ET

The Diamondbacks limped home from their six-game road trip after dropping the final five games, including a sweep at the hands of the Cardinals to push the Snakes under .500 for the first time since they were 5-6 back on April 7. The Pirates seem to limp everywhere this season with a 19-35 record, as they failed to secure a series win over the Brewers with a 6-5 loss to end a seven-game homestand.

Now the Buccos are out in the desert to take on the Diamondbacks in the series opener with Andrew Heaney and Ryne Nelson slated for the start. Arizona has been a terrific offense throughout the season, but their offensive prowess against lefties is clearly below what they’ve done against righties. There are only 10 teams with a positive wRC+ against lefties, as the Yankees and Cubs are really skewing the curve. Arizona is 11th in wOBA in that split at .310 with a 95 wRC+, a far cry from their league-leading .352 wOBA against RHP.

The Pirates haven’t really hit anybody this season, as they have a .290 wOBA and an 80 wRC+ against righties, ranking in the bottom five in both categories. Nelson owns a 4.60 ERA, but his advanced metrics paint a more favorable picture with a 4.28 xERA, 3.56 FIP, and a 3.51 xFIP. His 64% LOB% is holding him back quite a bit, but he gets a break against the Pirates here and a nice step down in class for his third start of the season.

Heaney’s numbers do point the other way, but maybe he’s catching the Snakes at a decent time given their five-game skid. Heaney has a 2.91 ERA with a 4.37 xERA and a 4.04 FIP on the season, as his .234 BABIP and 81.4% LOB% have done some heavy lifting. He is pitching to a 44.1% GB%, so he’s really been able to cut back the home run issue that has plagued him throughout his career, as that is his best GB% since 2016 when he only made one start.

Though he blew the save on Saturday, the Diamondbacks got top relief arm Justin Martinez back from the IL this past Thursday and didn’t wear out the bullpen much on the road trip, so they’re in good shape. Pittsburgh’s bullpen usage has been a little heavy, but with yesterday’s loss, none of the primary, high-leverage arms were called into action.

Pick: Pirates/Diamondbacks Under 9.5 (-118)

New York Yankees (-170, 10) at Los Angeles Angels

9:38 p.m. ET

The Yankees and Angels fire up a weekday set at The Big A with Ryan Yarbrough against Jack Kochanowicz. Yarbrough’s a pitcher that we all should be talking about more than we are at this point in time. The veteran soft-tosser has a 3.38 ERA with a 3.29 xERA and a 4.52 FIP in his 29.1 innings of work.

The heightened FIP is due to an elevated walk rate and five homers allowed in a small sample size, but I’m not really worried about that. What excites me is that Yarbrough, who is making his fourth straight start, has altered his pitch arsenal in a way that should bring him success. He’s basically eliminated the use of his four-seam fastball, dropping its usage rate down to 8.9%. He allowed a .275 BA with a .525 SLG on that pitch last season. He’s throwing his other four pitches at least 20% of the time with terrific exit velocity results on all of them. 

Yarbrough’s still well below average from a velo standpoint, but he is throwing his sinker harder to this point and has maintained those velo gains for the most part since moving back into the rotation. He ranks in the 99th percentile in both average exit velocity and Hard Hit% and 92nd percentile in Barrel%. Also, with his optimized kitchen sink arsenal, Yarbrough ranks in the 69th percentile in Whiff% and 60th in K%.

The Angels are pretty bad against lefties, coming in with a 26.9% K% and just a 3.8% BB%. They are 19th in wOBA at .286, boosted by a .410 SLG that probably isn’t sustainable moving forward, especially with so many wasted plate appearances due to strikeouts.

Kochanowicz is the opposite of Yarbrough. While he is in the 55th percentile in Chase Rate, 75th in fastball velo, and 82nd in GB%, he gives up a ton of hard contact. For a guy to be in the 82nd percentile in GB% and still be in the 29th percentile in Barrel% is a really bad sign. He has a 5.03 ERA with a 4.83 xERA and a 5.64 FIP in 10 starts over 53.2 innings. He only has 35 strikeouts against 27 walks.

The Yankees also have a huge bullpen advantage in this game, as they have a 2.13 ERA and a 3.25 FIP over the last 14 days compared to LA’s 4.93 ERA and 5.18 FIP. For the full season, the gap is even larger, with the Yankees at 3.29 in both ERA and FIP and the Angels dead last with a 6.45 ERA and a 5.25 FIP.

I do like the 1st 5 and full-game run lines here, but I’ll officially go with the full-game run line, as an offense like New York’s gains more equity with each time they come to the plate against a bad starter and a poor pitching staff.

Pick: Yankees Run Line -1.5 (-110)