MLB Best Bets Today April 5:
All 30 MLB teams are in action here on Final Four Saturday. While college hoops will dominate the airwaves, we do have baseball all day long, with a first pitch in Detroit at 1:10 p.m. ET and the last first pitch in Anaheim at 9:38 p.m. ET. A few games are threatened by rain and delays could mean that a starting pitcher has to exit earlier than you would like or maybe a rain-shortened game could be in play.
It is always important to check the weather to see how the ball may carry, but it is also important to know if a game has a chance of being delayed because managers may have to bring in a long reliever and those are often the worst pitchers on the team.
Top MLB Resources:
As a general rule, with these days that have a lot of afternoon games, I will typically bypass the early starts in the interest of lead time for readers, as the time difference out here in Vegas makes it tough to suggest anything on an early East Coast start.
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 5:
Cincinnati Reds at Milwaukee Brewers (-118, 8)
7:10 p.m. ET
Welp, let’s try this again. The Reds looked like they were going to get shut out for a fourth straight game, but did manage a couple of runs in last night’s 3-2 loss. They are getting some excellent pitching right now and I think that Brady Singer will be able to continue that. This is a very good matchup for Singer in my opinion, which should help the Reds a lot, even if they struggle to score again.
Singer displayed a new-look arsenal and worked seven shutout innings with eight strikeouts in his first start of 2025. Most importantly, at least to me, he had a 35.7% Hard Hit% against, as his revamped repertoire should help him cut down on three straight seasons with a HH% north of 40%, including one year at 48.4%.
The Brewers lead MLB in ground ball percentage so far, which should play into the still sinker-heavy arsenal of Singer. He can keep the ball on the ground here, but also generate a good number of Whiffs against a Brewers lineup with a 25.8% K% thus far. Milwaukee has drawn a lot of walks over the last few seasons to help offset the strikeouts, but Singer is very stingy with those. He did walk a couple in his first start, but he’s had BB% of 7.1%, 7.0%, and 5.6% over the last three seasons by pounding the zone.
Elvin Rodriguez gets the call for the M*A*S*H unit that is the Milwaukee pitching staff. He gave up four runs on six hits in four innings in his Brewers debut last time out. Rodriguez profiles as a solid bullpen arm because his arsenal just isn’t deep enough to turn lineups over. It was actually the first inning that presented problems in the opener against KC. I’m hoping that happens again and the Reds can get some good vibes going early.
Cincy hasn’t shown a ton of great contact quality to this point, but their .227 BABIP has to be on the rise sooner rather than later. Also, the Brewers are going to probably have no choice but to use lesser arms here like Connor Thomas and Grant Anderson. I considered that yesterday with the full game vs. 1st 5. Well, they used four relievers yesterday and you’d have two guys working for the fifth time in seven days, two working three in a row, and one working four out of five. Since Rodriguez won’t give them length, they’ll have a real tough time figuring that all out.
Pick: Reds -102
Athletics (-120, 9.5) at Colorado Rockies
8:10 p.m. ET
JP Sears and German Marquez are the listed hurlers here and there was a lot to unpack from their first starts of the season. Sears went much heavier with his sweeper and slider, which actually led to a surprising uptick in ground balls. Marquez was very sharp in his debut, as his velo was back and he continued to talk in the postgame about how he finally feels healthy and how much of a departure that is from the past.
If he continues to be effective, he’ll succeed in getting himself out of Denver and onto a contender’s roster this summer. I think he has a chance to be more effective than his counterpart in this start today.
Let’s start with Sears. I’m excited to see a big change in his arsenal, as he was definitely prone to giving up way too many homers. That being said, pitching in the altitude in Denver is a problem. Pitches break less there, so my guess is that the gameplan for Sears will feature more fastballs in this start than it did in his last one. His fastball is -26 runs in pitch value over the course of his career. If he does continue to throw the sweeper/slider combo, it won’t do what it has been doing, so he could absolutely leave some in the middle of the plate.
Marquez has velo on his side. On a cold day in Denver with temps in the mid-to-low 40s throughout the evening, I think that is really important for him to fall back on. Obviously his splits at Coors Field don’t exactly look great, but he does have more experience than Sears with pitching in these conditions. Sears was acquired from the Yankees and he only made one start in the PCL for Las Vegas. Most ballparks in that league are launching pads.
Also, if Sears goes back to his fastball more, he’s likely to allow more aerial contact, which can be a major problem at Coors because of how spacious the outfield is.
I’m not interested in dealing with the two bullpens here, but I do like Marquez and the Rockies for the 1st 5.
Pick: Rockies 1st 5 (-110)
Cleveland Guardians (-155, 8.5) at Los Angeles Angels
9:38 p.m. ET
I’ve got a bit of a different betting angle here in this one and it centers around the Guardians in the first inning. Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz had a rough first inning last time out against the White Sox and that continues a trend that we’ve seen emerge early in his career.
The White Sox had batted balls of 104.4, 105.3, 100.7, 104.4, and 106.2 mph in Kochanowicz’s first start of the season. Nick Maton led the game off with a home run and the White Sox had three Barreled balls in the inning, two of which actually went for outs. Two other hard-hit balls were singles.
In 12 career first innings, Kochanowicz has allowed four home runs and three doubles. He’s given up 14 total runs on 21 hits and a .389/.421/.667 slash line. Cleveland’s lineup is not deep overall, but the top four of Steven Kwan, Jose Ramirez (3 HR last night), Kyle Manzardo, and Carlos Santana are the guys that can actually take advantage of this trend.
Under the 1st Inning tab at DraftKings (and presumably other books), you can find the Guardians at +190 to score a first inning run. I think this is a worthwhile endeavor, especially with Kwan’s bat control and inside-out approach that should work well against Kochanowicz’s sinker to get the inning started and with Ramirez’s big output yesterday to get him on track.
Pick: Cleveland Guardians 1st Inning Run – Yes (+190)
