MLB Best Bets Today May 1

We are greeted by 11 games to start the month of May, as some teams finish up series with getaway games and others begin a four-game weekend set. We’re a little over a month into the season now, as everything started on March 27, but we can compare March/April year-over-year to recent seasons and see how things are trending.

An offensive uptick late in the month actually gave us a higher SLG than four of the previous five seasons. The only one higher was 2023 at .405. So, the league-wide SLG is definitely up and, furthermore, on pace with the first month of the season in prior years.

2025: .242/.316/.392

2024: .240/.314/.385

2023: .247/.321/.405

2022: .231/.307/.369

2021: .232/.309/.390

One of the more interesting developments to me is that K% is down to 22.1% and BB% is up to 9.0%. Both of those are top marks in this five-year sample size. We also continue to see hitters try to elevate the baseball, as the fly ball rate is at a peak of 38.4%. We also saw 70 more stolen bases than last season over the first month and a few days.

As usual, BABIP and LOB% were pretty sticky in the .280s and 72% range, respectively. The HR/FB% was 11%, up just slightly from 10.8% last season, so it appears that we are likely dealing with the same baseballs we had last year, at least for now.

I’ve talked a lot about how poorly road teams are doing this season, winning less than 40% of their games to this point. The road K% for pitchers is down to 21.1%, a dramatic drop of 1.4% from last season. Pitchers have allowed a .252/.327/.409 slash on the road and a .325 wOBA, which are all highs in the five-year split or tie one (2023 SLG). The road ERA of 4.45 is the highest in the sample as well.

Conversely, home pitchers have a 3.64 ERA, nearly .4 runs lower than last season. The 23.1% K% is the second-highest in the sample and up about .6% from last season. I think the most interesting thing is that the league-wide LOB% at home is 74.3%, an increase of 4% from last season! Home teams are arguably in line for a decent amount of pitching regression in light of that, especially combined with a .279 BABIP that is well off the pace of the last two seasons with the shift ban.

Just some stuff to chew on as we flip the calendar to May.

Only four of today’s games are late, so that’s a bummer, as in the interest of lead time, I don’t like to give out any of the morning PT start times. That limits the card, but it’s only fair to readers.

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 1:

Detroit Tigers (-120, 8.5) at Los Angeles Angels

9:38 p.m. ET

The Tigers and Angels kick off a four-game set at The Big A, as Detroit sends another pitching success story to the hill in Casey Mize. The Halos will counter with Yusei Kikuchi, who went to the Angels and immediately went in the opposite direction. The Angels have proven to be an awful organization when it comes to developing and maximizing pitchers and Kikuchi looks like their latest project.

The 33-year-old southpaw has a 4.31 ERA with a 4.58 xERA and a 4.67 FIP over 31.1 innings of work. His K% is down to 20%, which would be the second-lowest of his MLB career. His BB% is up to 12.9%, similar to what he posted in 2022, but still a career-worst. His Hard Hit% is down from last season and his Barrel% is on par with last season. If the HH% does increase and his K and BB rates don’t improve, he’s going to be in serious trouble. Oh, and his velo is down, too. So are his spin rates.

I guess it’s possible that he’s hurt and the Angels aren’t really to blame, but his Whiff% are down and his fastball is ineffective, much like it was last season. He’s actually throwing it less often, but his slider hasn’t been as effective either and hitters are faring much better on that pitch. 

We certainly don’t think of the Tigers as a good offense, but they’re a good offense against southpaws. They rank ninth in wOBA at .323 and sixth in wRC+ at 111. This has definitely been a good split for them and the Angels are just a mess right now. They’ve lost five in a row and seven of eight, as they didn’t recover at all from the late game at home last Thursday followed by a quick turnaround and a 3:30 flight to Minneapolis, where they landed around 5 a.m. CT.

Mize has a 2.12 ERA with a 2.44 xERA and a 3.99 FIP heading into this start. His 94.5% LOB% doesn’t have a ton of staying power with his low K% and his .238 BABIP is going to regress as well. But, I’ll look for more of that down the line when he isn’t playing a sad sack team like the Angels. His K% is up a little to 19.5% and his BB% is down to 5.9%, but he’s always been a guy with a low BB%. What I like to see is that his Hard Hit% and Barrel% are both down, so he’s definitely locating better this season than he has in the past. 

The Angels are 23rd in wOBA against RHP and 25th in wRC+. The Tigers pen has had a bigger workload this week, but they are fourth in ERA and 18th in FIP (another spot to look for some upcoming regression), while the Angels are 29th in ERA and 26th in FIP.

Detroit and some individuals certainly have regression signs to follow moving forward, but I’d like to think they can keep them at bay another day to pick up this win.

Pick: Tigers -120