MLB Best Bets Today September 26:
Nine games are on the board for Thursday. It was supposed to be 10, but Hurricane Helene had other ideas. MLB’s complete bungling of that situation and the Braves’ unwillingness to waver have been major storylines over the last 24 hours. But, we’ve got other things to worry about.
A lot of starters are making their final outings of the season and players are looking for those statistical benchmarks. We cashed one last night with Freddy Peralta’s Over/Under 5.5 Strikeout prop when he needed seven for 200. He got exactly seven. That’s not to say a lot of those opportunities exist today, but be mindful of them as the season winds down.
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Here are the MLB best bets today for September 26:
Baltimore Orioles at New York Yankees (-155, 8)
7:05 p.m. ET
The Yankees’ Magic Number is one for the AL East, but the Orioles are providing a lot of resistance. Baltimore has won the first two games of this series by 5-3 and 9-7 counts and will be in search of the sweep with ace Corbin Burnes on the bump. Gerrit Cole goes for the Yankees.
I don’t really have any earth-shattering or ground-breaking analysis for this one. This line just looks too high. Burnes has a 3.82 ERA in the second half over 70.2 innings of work, but his numbers aren’t that different from when he had a 2.43 ERA over 118.2 innings in the first half. Burnes has seen increases of 16 points in BA, 35 points in OBP, and 16 points in SLG, all culminating in a 24-point bump in wOBA. His first-half FIP was 3.29 and his second-half FIP is 3.88, so the numbers are definitely not as good, but he’s run into some bad sequencing luck and has seen a bump in home runs allowed.
Now that it’s cooling off, the HR bump shouldn’t really be as much of an issue. He’s still very tough on righties and actually has pitched better on the road than at home this season, holding opponents to a .248 wOBA.
Cole has mostly settled in, except for a hiccup against the Red Sox two starts ago. Since the start of August, Cole has a 2.53 ERA with a 2.68 FIP in 53.1 innings, so he’s mostly back to normal. I think this should be a good pitcher’s duel and I’m willing to take my chances with a low-scoring expectation and a game that will likely be decided by the bullpens.
Over the last 30 days, the Orioles pen ranks seventh in FIP and the Yankees pen ranks ninth. I don’t see this big of a gap between Burnes and Cole or the two offenses, so the Orioles seem to be worthy of an underdog roll of the dice.
Pick: Orioles +130
San Diego Padres at Los Angeles Dodgers (-115, 8.5)
10:10 p.m. ET
The Dodgers can clinch the NL West tonight with a win over the Padres, so there is a lot on the line in Chavez Ravine this evening. The Padres wrap up the regular season in Arizona against the Diamondbacks, where a Wild Card berth will be on the line for the Snakes.
Walker Buehler and Joe Musgrove get the call here for their respective teams and I’ve got a player prop that I’m looking at. Manny Machado has hit 29 home runs. He finished with exactly 30 last season and has seven 30-homer seasons to his name. The way that DraftKings labels their home run props now is “Manny Machado 1+ Home Runs”, so that’s what I’m keyed in on here.
Buehler has allowed 16 homers in just 70.1 innings over his 15 starts this season. Since returning to the rotation on August 14, Buehler has a 5.40 ERA with a 5.29 FIP and has surrendered six homers in seven starts. Of Buehler’s 16 homers, righties have eight and lefties have eight. Of Machado’s 29 HR, he’s hit 22 of them against righties and has actually performed a bit better in that split from a contact standpoint. Machado also has 16 second-half HR in just 58 games and nine of them this month. He’s been swinging a great bat.
I think Machado gets one over the next four days, but Buehler’s high HR rate and the possibility that he might get a day or two off this weekend point me towards giving this a shot today. At other books, this is likely a “Yes/No” prop on Machado to homer, but I’ve been using DK odds and wording all season long.
Pick: Manny Machado 1+ Home Runs (+400)
