MLB Best Bets Today May 8

A limited Thursday slate on the diamond means that the number of games available to me is cut down even further. Between the time difference, the handicapping time, and lead time for readers, the early starts just aren’t feasible or fair, so it comes down to tonight’s four night games. Those would be Reds vs. Braves, Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks, Blue Jays vs. Angels, and Phillies vs. Rays.

Second games of a doubleheader are tricky to wager on, given that we don’t know what will happen in Game 1, so I’m not really looking at Tigers vs. Rockies, especially with TBD listed for the Tigers in that matchup.

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 8:

Cincinnati Reds at Atlanta Braves (-205, 8)

7:15 p.m. ET

Spencer Schwellenbach will try to get back on track in the series finale between the Braves and Reds. Cincinnati will counter with Nick Lodolo and he is the subject of my handicap, as I’ll be keeping close tabs on Schwelly, but there is a player prop that I like in this one.

The Braves have struggled against southpaws this season. They also haven’t seen a lot of them, so we’ll see if their numbers normalize a bit as we keep going. But, one thing I don’t think that they will do a lot tonight is strike out. Lodolo is coming off of a hideous start against the Nationals and he’s been very inconsistent with his mechanics thus far. His arm angle and release point have been dancing around a little bit and his two best starts have come in the two games where his arm angle was the highest. In his last start, it was tied for the lowest of the season.

He’s only gone Over 4.5 Strikeouts twice this season. One of them was in one of the games with a low arm angle, but that was against the Mariners, who have the fourth-highest SwStr% and lowest Z-Contact%. The other was against the Rockies, who have the highest SwStr% and third-lowest Z-Contact%. The Braves are a middle-of-the-pack type of team in both areas.

Lodolo has registered four starts with a single-digit SwStr%. The three he hasn’t have been against Seattle, Miami, and Colorado, all teams with major contact issues. As an oft-injured hurler, I pay closer attention to mechanics and arm angle/release point differences more with those guys as potential indicators of discomfort. As it is, this is the lowest arm slot for Lodolo in his MLB career, so he’s trying to stay healthier and leverage his arsenal more, but this is a pretty dramatic drop of four degrees and seven degrees over the last two seasons. I’m not surprised that it has bred some inconsistency.

Lodolo has only issued seven walks this season, so he’s around the zone and I think that the Braves will be very aggressive tonight as a result.

Pick: Nick Lodolo (CIN) Under 4.5 Strikeouts (+105)

Toronto Blue Jays (-130, 8.5) at Los Angeles Angels

9:38 p.m. ET

The road trip for the Blue Jays is off to a terrible start after blowing a two-run lead in the ninth inning last night to lose 5-4. That was on the heels of another poor relief effort on Tuesday night. They’ll turn to Chris Bassitt in hopes of some length and stability here in this one. The Angels will turn to Jose Soriano and he is the subject of my handicap.

I will preface this by saying that a lot of this is speculation on my part, but my belief is that Soriano was going through a bit of a “dead arm” period throughout the second half of April. After peaking at 98.7 mph against Cleveland on April 4, his velocity dropped in each successive start until he found it again last time out. He sat 97.7 with the four-seam and 96.6 with the sinker, turning in six shutout innings with five strikeouts and just one walk.

Batted ball variance will always be a thing for Soriano. That’ll happen with a 63.9% GB%. But, his .322 BABIP is probably a tad on the high side. Like I did above, I looked at Soriano’s mechanics and under-the-hood data for the season. He had a huge innings increase from 2023 to 2024, as he went from 42 MLB innings over 38 appearances and 23.1 innings at Double-A to 113 innings at the MLB level over 20 starts and two relief outings. I’m not entirely surprised to see him struggle at the outset of this season and also experience a bit of a velo decline.

But, his arm angle was back up a bit and his vertical release point was at the highest point of the season. It wasn’t quite on par with last year, when he posted a 3.42 ERA with a 4.14 xERA and a 3.80 FIP, but it was close. And I think he’s getting stronger and starting to fix some of the bad habits that we saw at the outset.

Soriano has a little bit of a heightened BB%, but opposing hitters put a ball in play on over 70% of their plate appearances. The Blue Jays don’t strike out a lot and don’t walk a lot, at least not against righties. This should be a spot for Soriano to give the team a little bit of length.

Thus far, the Angels have gotten six innings from Tyler Anderson and six innings from Yusei Kikuchi, who both pitched extremely well against the struggling Toronto offense. Soriano can play follow the leader here.

Pick: Jose Soriano (LAA) Over 17.5 Outs Recorded (-115)