MLB Best Bets Today May 5

Ten games are on the slate for Monday in Major League Baseball and all of them are evening or nighttime starts. It is a bummer not having day baseball as we shake off some cobwebs and get back into the work week, but that also means pretty of time to handicap the card and digest what we’ve seen from these pitchers and lineups.

Five games are in the NL, three games are interleague, and only two games are in the AL, so we’ll see some new series start tomorrow, but we have a bunch of new series to work with here on May 5.

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 5:

Cincinnati Reds at Atlanta Braves (-148, 8.5)

7:15 p.m. ET

The Reds and Braves fire up a weekday set at Truist Park, as Atlanta comes in off of a sweep-avoiding victory over the Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball and Cincinnati is back out on the MLB highway after a disappointing 3-4 homestand.

Brady Singer gets the call today for the Reds and I think his bill is coming due in the near future. He enters this start with a 3.24 ERA, 3.64 xERA, and a 3.64 FIP, so the regression signs are not terribly obvious, but I’m seeing them. His .244 BABIP is nearly 70 points off of his career mark and he had some pretty good fielders during his five seasons in Kansas City. His newfound fly ball prowess is something I’ve talked about as a concern with Great American Ball Park as his home venue and I don’t think a start in the warm and humid conditions of Georgia should inspire much confidence.

Singer didn’t allow a home run in his first two starts, but has allowed one in each of his last four starts, so regression to the mean is taking place there. His Hard Hit% is also up to 44.2% now and he’s running a double-digit Barrel% at 10.5%. With the increase in fly balls, we haven’t really seen a huge increase in pop ups, with a 5.4% IFFB%, as he’s only induced two pop ups thus far.

His K% should regress with a 10.6% SwStr% and no noteworthy increases to his F-Strike% or his Chase Rate. In fact, Singer only ranks in the 22nd percentile in Chase%. He’s in the 12th percentile in average exit velo, 28th in Barrel%, 29th in Hard Hit%, and he is also allowing the highest Pull% of his career. A bad start is absolutely coming soon. The Braves have been swinging it better over the last little while following a very slow start to the season.

Atlanta is sending out AJ Smith-Shawver here, as he’s been dealing with a little bit of discomfort. He heads into this start with a 4.26 ERA, 6.53 xERA, and a 4.23 FIP in his 19 innings of work. He’s running a .385 BABIP, but an 82.7% LOB%, so we’ll see what that means going forward. He has 22 K in 19 innings and has also issued nine walks. Smith-Shawver has a 43.6% Hard Hit% and a 14.5% Barrel%, so those are two indicators of why he has a .385 BABIP against.

He has an 87.2% Z-Contact%, which I find problematic in this start. He’s been living on a lot of chases with a Chase% of 31.4%. The Reds are a top-five offense in terms of not swinging at pitches outside the zone. I don’t know that Smith-Shawver has the consistency in the zone to be super effective here. The Rockies, Marlins, and Padres have all been opponents thus far and they are all in the top six in Chase%.

So, I’m looking for runs here. I trust Atlanta’s offense more, so I like their 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 at +110, their full-game total Over 4.5 at -105, as the Reds bullpen is a big regression candidate with a 3.65 ERA, but a 4.83 FIP and a 4.67 xFIP, and then the full-game Over 8.5.

Picks: Braves 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 (+110); Braves Team Total Over 4.5 (-105); Reds/Braves Over 8.5 (-115)

New York Mets at Arizona Diamondbacks (-120, 9.5)

9:40 p.m. ET

It was a long day on Sunday for both of these teams. The Mets played two in St. Louis and got into Phoenix at about 10:30 p.m. The Diamondbacks needed an extra inning in Philadelphia to come away with a 10-8 win and got back home a little bit after 9 p.m. No rest for the weary here, as the teams didn’t get a Monday travel day. Instead, they’re right back at it against each other after playing last week in Queens.

Griffin Canning has been a great story this season and a pitcher that I have followed closely, but I’m getting a little bit concerned with some recent trends. He’s been effective enough over his last three starts, but his four-seam fastball percentage has gone up to 44.1%, 33.3%, and 40%. Those are his first two starts at 40% or higher of the season. Perhaps they were simply matchup-dependent, but Canning’s fastball is -27.3 runs over the course of his career per Statcast.

With a big spike in GB%, Canning’s 8.0% HR/FB% is a career-high. Usually guys with high GB rates end up with higher HR/FB% because they aren’t inducing the same sample size of fly balls as others. Canning has only given up two homers this year, which I expect to rise soon. Also, his 84.6% LOB% is likely not sustainable for much longer.

Canning has faced the Nationals, Phillies, Cardinals, Athletics, Blue Jays, and Astros to this point. Those teams currently rank 18th, 11th, 9th, 15th, 29th, and 23rd in wOBA against RHP. The Diamondbacks are third at .348 and are tied for the league lead in homers in that split. This is a spot where I could see some of the shine come off a bit.

Arizona is sending out Ryne Nelson, as Corbin Burnes gets his start skipped in hopes of clearing up some shoulder discomfort. Nelson has a 5.82 ERA in his 17 innings of work, but two blow-ups have skewed his ERA. He actually has a 2.19 FIP and a 3.35 xERA, so he’s thrown the ball pretty well on the whole. He’s only allowed one Barrel thus far and most of his hard-hit contact has been on the ground or to the big part of the ballpark. We’ve seen an uptick in velo from Nelson, which may not be sustainable as a starter, but Stuff+ really likes his arsenal this season compared to previous seasons. 

The Diamondbacks needed five relievers yesterday, an important note since Nelson isn’t all that stretched out, but all of the team’s arms are available thanks to lighter workloads on Saturday and Friday. The Mets needed six relievers across the two games yesterday.

I’ll take a shot with the D-Backs here, as they return home and Canning is likely in line for a rough outing soon.

Pick: Diamondbacks -120