MLB Best Bets Today August 21
Key Highlights:
- 9 games on the MLB schedule today
- Red Sox vs. Yankees, Dodgers vs. Padres this weekend
- Astros vs. Orioles: A 1st 5 Moneyline wager
Nine games are on the MLB slate for Thursday, as 12 teams enjoy a day off and 18 continue their path to the finish line. Early starts in Minneapolis, Kansas City, Chicago, and Denver leave slim pickings for the late crowd, but we’ll still have five games that start after the 4 p.m. ET hour.
We have quite a few compelling series coming up this weekend, including Dodgers vs. Padres, but Red Sox vs. Yankees gets underway tonight in the Bronx and that will be one of two FOX broadcasts available, with the other being Astros vs. Orioles.
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. Check out our new MLB tools powered by Ballpark Pal: Strikeout Projections, Park Factors, and YRFI Report.
Here are the MLB best bets today for August 21:
Houston Astros at Baltimore Orioles (-121, 8.5)
7:15 p.m. ET
It has not been a good week for the Astros. They went 31.2 straight innings without scoring before Mauricio Dubon hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning of yesterday’s 7-2 loss to the Tigers. It was a game in which the Astros were down 6-0 before they got to hit for a second time, as ace Framber Valdez took it on the chin.
Houston has been shut out four times in the last six games and has only scored seven runs in that span. The saving grace for them is that the Mariners have also gone in the tank, so they still have a 1.5-game lead in the AL West as they open up a series with the Orioles. These two teams just played last weekend in Houston and the Orioles took two of three, including Brandon Young’s near perfect game. The only hit Young surrendered was a swinging bunt single that he then threw down the first base line. He struck out the next hitter.
The 93 pitches that Young threw six days ago were the most he had thrown since April 26. Even with the near-perfecto, he has a 5.68 ERA with a 4.23 xERA and a 4.99 FIP over 52.1 innings across 11 starts. That type of start is going to be an outlier no matter what by its very nature, but that’s not what we’ve typically seen from Young, who even allowed six runs in just three innings in his start before that.
What has defined his season has been his issues with men on base. The obvious way to fix that is to not allow any, but that’s not a sustainable strategy. With the bases empty, hitters own just a .233/.298/.419 slash. But, with men on base, they’re batting .368/.419/.658 and .333/.375/.571 with men in scoring position. Maybe he’s tipping his pitches from the stretch or has some other sort of mechanical issue, but I can’t see him going 7.2 innings without a base runner again.
Jason Alexander gets the call for the Astros here. While I’m not a huge believer in the profile, I do appreciate his 51.8% GB%. The 2.63 ERA with a 3.75 FIP since joining the Astros feels dicey at best, but Houston felt they had something when they acquired him from the Athletics and his sinker/changeup arsenal has worked.
Per Statcast, Baltimore is -25.2 batting runs against sinkers this season and -2.8 against changeups, ranking 27th and 21st, respectively, in those two categories. I’m not sure what will happen with the patchwork Astros bullpen in light of Josh Hader’s injury, and that group has a 5.91 ERA with a 5.87 FIP this month, but I do like Alexander and the Astros over Young and the Orioles for the 1st 5.
Pick: Astros 1st 5 (+100)
