MLB Best Bets Today August 12
Another day on the diamond as the MLB season keeps pushing towards the end. We’ve got a little over six weeks to go in the regular season and then the action-packed playoffs get underway. All 30 teams take the field today with our first game at 6:35 p.m. ET and our last first pitch scheduled for 10:05 p.m. ET.
As is often the case, we have five games in each league and five interleague games, with three division rivalry series in the NL and just one in the AL. For another random nugget on today’s card, there are five left-handed starters out of the 10 in the NL. There are five left-handed starters total across the AL and interleague, unless the Twins and/or White Sox decide to go with a southpaw in place of TBD, which is what was listed this morning.
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 12:
Seattle Mariners (-172, 9) at Baltimore Orioles
6:35 p.m. ET
The Mariners take their show on the road to the East Coast for this weekday set against the Orioles. It will be George Kirby for the heavily-favored visitors and Dean Kremer for the home underdogs. Kirby is rocking a 4.04 ERA with a 3.47 xERA and a 3.40 FIP on the season, so he’s been throwing the ball well since his season got off to a late start. He has his best career K% at 26%, but he also has a career-worst 12.3% HR/FB%.
On its own, that’s not a bad number at all, but let’s look a little bit deeper. Kirby has allowed four homers in 45.1 innings at home. He’s allowed five homers in just 32.2 innings on the road, a big contributing factor to his .403 SLG against in those road outings. Lefties actually own a .468 road SLG off of Kirby in 54 plate appearances.
As you would expect, Kirby has some home/road splits to his name, including a career .426 SLG against on the road with 39 of his 66 homers allowed. That’s a road HR/FB% of 11.4% compared to his 8.7% at home. This season, lefties have hit seven of the nine homers he has surrendered, posting a .424 SLG compared to righties with a paltry .295 SLG.
That brings me to Gunnar Henderson. Henderson owns a .310/.381/.533 slash against righties this season with a .388 wOBA and a 151 wRC+. He’s hit 14 homers this season and 11 have been off of righties. More notably, eight of the 11 have been at home, where Henderson has been a .353/.411/.654 guy against RHP, leading to a .446 wOBA and a 191 wRC+. He’s been very comfortable at Camden Yards.
He’s been swinging a good stick in the second half as well, posting a .300/.374/.513 slash with a K% that has dropped by nearly 9% compared to his first half. He’s actually been raking since the start of May, as a terrible April dug a hole that it took a bit of time to dig out of.
Kirby is an extreme strike-thrower and home runs will happen with those types of guys, especially on a warm night in Baltimore. I like Henderson +425 to hit a home run at DraftKings (listed as 1+ HR) and also Over 1.5 Total Bases at +100. Henderson was one of the league’s best hitters against sliders last season and is a positive hitter on that pitch this season, while also being ninth in the league in batting runs against fastballs among qualified hitters.
Picks: Gunnar Henderson (BAL) Over 1.5 Total Bases (+100); To Hit 1+ HR (+425)
Chicago Cubs at Toronto Blue Jays (-125, 9)
7:07 p.m. ET
A fun one north of the border features Ben Brown and Jose Berrios as the Cubs and Blue Jays fire up some interleague action. Brown gets the start for the Cubs eight days after his last relief appearance, where he allowed one run on two hits over four innings against the Reds. There are a handful of positive regression signs in the profile for the 25-year-old right-hander, as he enters with a 6.04 ERA, 4.45 xERA, and a 4.11 FIP.
The best attribute for Brown is easily his 25.4% K% and 12.3% SwStr%. But, here’s the problem. When he’s not getting swings and misses, he has a lot of issues. For a guy with a high Whiff% like his, an 87.6% Z-Contact% is not ideal, as he’s getting a lot of his Whiffs outside the zone. Against RHP, the Blue Jays have the lowest K% in the league at 17.1%. Overall, they have the lowest K% at 17.4%. They will chase, but they have the highest O-Contact% at 64.1%, nearly 5% better than anybody else.
When Brown isn’t getting the Whiffs, he gets hit hard. He has a 46.5% Hard Hit% against with an 11.3% Barrel% against. As a result, he has a .347 BABIP against and a 15.2% HR/FB%. Over 15 starts and 19 total appearances, Brown has seven outings with at least five runs allowed, six of them starts. As a starter, opposing batters own a .294/.349/.492 slash with a .362 wOBA and he has a 6.30 ERA with 14 homers allowed in 75.2 innings.
So, I don’t love this spot for Brown against a Blue Jays lineup that ranks second in wOBA at .335 against RHP. However, I also don’t love this matchup for Berrios, as the Cubs are ranked fourth in wOBA against RHP. Over his last five starts, Berrios owns a 5.55 ERA with a 6.07 FIP in 24.1 innings. Four of the runs he’s given up are unearned, otherwise his ERA would look even worse. He’s allowed seven homers in that span and a 12.3% Barrel%.
Four of those five starts have been on the road, yet his home ERA is still nearly a run higher than his road ERA. The Cubs also lead the league in road wOBA at .336, including a league-best .455 SLG. Berrios has a home run problem with his shoddy command.
As a side note, the Blue Jays have the second-best home wOBA at .342 and have scored 17 more runs (5.3 R/G) at home in five fewer games compared to the road.
These two bullpens are 19th and 25th, respectively in ERA this month, with the Blue Jays worse, posting a 5.70 ERA.
Picks: Blue Jays 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 (+100); 1st 5 Over 5.5 (+100); Over 9 (-111)
San Diego Padres at San Francisco Giants (-120, 7.5)
9:45 p.m. ET
NL West rivals duke it out again tonight as the Padres and Giants play Game 2 of their three-game set. San Diego won 4-1 last night to beat a tough customer in Logan Webb and they’ll look to do the same tonight against southpaw Robbie Ray. The Padres will counter with a lefty of their own in Nestor Cortes.
I thought Cortes looked pretty good in his first start with San Diego. He gave up two runs on three hits. The control was erratic, as he walked three, hit two, and struck out three, but he had a 13.2% SwStr% and had a 30.2% Chase Rate. For a guy with a career 10.5% SwStr% and a 27.1% Chase Rate, it was nice to see both of those numbers on the high side under pitching coach Ruben Niebla’s watch. Cortes leveraged his sweeper a little bit more than normal and I’m curious if the Padres figured out something with the shape of that pitch. Of course, it could’ve just been a classification error with his cutter, but I’m always in favor of throwing more pitches that induce weak contact.
The Giants have been the worst offense against LHP this season with a .211/.275/.335 slash, .269 wOBA, and a 73 wRC+. All of those numbers are the worst in the league. Has it gotten any better lately? No. The Giants are dead last with a .250 wOBA, 61 wRC+, and a .198 BA against LHP in the last 30 days.
The Padres have been an above average offense in that split over the last 30 days and that is an improvement from where they were for the season prior to that point. Also, they obviously recognized that shortcoming at the Trade Deadline getting Jose Iglesias, Bryce Johnson, Freddy Fermin, and Ramon Laureano, all guys that can provide a platoon advantage in that split.
The Padres just might have the best bullpen in baseball and plenty of high-leverage options, so anytime they’re in a game that could swing either way with a low-scoring expectation, they’re worthy of a look.
Pick: Padres -102
