MLB Best Bets Today April 25
The MLB card for Thursday is chock full of day games, as there is only one true night game on the slate. It also features the biggest favorite on the board with the A’s at the Yankees. I try to do everything I can to provide as much lead time as possible with the articles and the picks, but sometimes you run into a card like today, where the other “late” game features another huge favorite.
Mix in a new edition of the Double Play Podcast with myself and Dustin Swedelson and today is a bit of a race, so pardon the quick-hitting analysis in hopes of getting this out a bit earlier.
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Article runs Monday-Saturday, odds current from DraftKings at time of publish, SHOP AROUND for the best prices. Tracking sheet is here.
Here are the MLB best bets today for April 25:
San Diego Padres (-148, 11) at Colorado Rockies
3:10 p.m. ET
Randy Vasquez and Dakota Hudson square off on Thursday afternoon at Coors Field. We haven’t really seen Coors play to its full capability very often thus far, but that’s because the Denver area is really off to a slow start weather-wise to the spring. That will not be the case today, as we’ll see sunny skies and temps in the 70s for this 1:10 p.m. local start time. It looks like a truly great day for baseball.
Vasquez will make his second start of the season for the Friars. He allowed four runs on five hits in his last outing, as only one of the four runs was earned, but it was not an impressive start at all. He ran a 4.1% SwStr% and only threw a first-pitch strike to half of the batters he faced. Per Statcast, Vasquez only had a 20% Chase Rate, so hitters were not expanding the zone at all and weren’t particularly impressed with his arsenal. He allowed a 52.9% Hard Hit%, so the Jays probably should have found even more success.
On the Rockies side, Hudson has allowed 15 runs on 23 hits in 21.1 innings of work. Only 12 of the runs are earned, leading to a 5.06 ERA, but there are a lot of things to dislike about him in this start. He’s walked 11 and only struck out 12, which are two big ones. The Padres obviously aren’t walking at the rate that they did with Juan Soto, but they still have a top 10 BB% at 9.7% and also have the third-lowest K%.
Walks and balls in play are problematic anywhere, but especially at Coors Field. Hudson is a little lucky in that he’s more of a ground ball guy than a fly ball or line drive guy, but still. He doesn’t generate much swing and miss with a 7.1% SwStr% and Statcast has him down for a 19.4% Chase Rate, so he doesn’t get guys to expand the zone.
To summarize, we’re not going to see many strikeouts between these two guys and we could see some heightened walk rates. I’ve already documented Hudson’s, but Vasquez had a 10.8% BB% last season with the Yankees at the MLB level. While he has made two minor league starts for the Padres Triple-A affiliate in El Paso (3,740 feet in elevation) and one in Sacramento, he doesn’t have a ton of exposure to pitching in altitude.
I think we have a good chance at early offense in this game.
Pick: Padres/Rockies 1st 5 Over 5.5 (-115)
