MLB Best Bets Today August 13

Key Highlights:

• Nick Pivetta bounce back in Padres vs. Giants?
• Hunter Greene’s return for Phillies vs. Reds
• A 1st 5 mismatch in Marlins vs. Guardians?

We’re nearing the midway point of August and the postseason races have already reached a fever pitch. The AL West and NL West are tied entering play today and things remain tight in the Wild Card hunt. It should be an exciting close to the season and the teams that have been on heaters will look to keep applying pressure with all 30 franchises in action on Wednesday.

There are a handful of day games on the docket today as we’ll have all-day baseball. That should make for a really fun marathon on the diamond.

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 13:

San Diego Padres (-156, 8) at San Francisco Giants

3:45 p.m. ET

Getaway day action at Oracle Park between the Padres and Giants. San Diego has limited San Francisco to just two runs over the first three games of this series and we’ve got Nick Pivetta in a bounce back spot. The Giants will respond with Kai-Wei Teng, who was mostly used as a reliever in Triple-A, but had four thoroughly impressive starts to warrant a call-up.

Like I said, the Padres have really put the clamps down on the Giants in this series. San Fran has just two extra-base hits in the series and have had a handful of singles, but haven’t been able to come up with the big hit. Padres hurlers have also racked up 21 strikeouts in two games, something that Pivetta and the pen will hope to continue today.

The veteran right-hander had a rough start last time out against his former employer, as the Red Sox hit him up for five runs over six innings. It was his first start with more than two earned runs allowed since June 20. I’d fully expect a bounce back here for a guy with a 2.94 ERA, 3.78 xERA, and a 3.31 FIP. He’s obviously been better at Petco Park than on the road, but Oracle Park is a good pitcher’s park and the Giants have scored 13 runs over their last six games.

Teng is sort of the wild card in this matchup. In 54 Triple-A innings, he racked up 86 strikeouts against 21 walks. Twenty-one of the 25 appearances were in relief, but he had a four-start stretch going 19.2 innings with a 35/7 K/BB ratio and one earned run allowed on just seven hits.

His first MLB start was a dud against the Mets, but the line score doesn’t really tell the whole story to me. Two of the runs he allowed were inherited runners given up by Matt Gage. He gave up a three-run homer to Pete Alonso in the first inning after a hit and a walk. He went five solid innings against the Nationals in his next outing with no runs allowed and just three hits. Gage was actually the opener for him in that one.

To this point, Teng has allowed a 26.1% Hard Hit% and just the one Alonso Barrel in 23 batted ball events. The Giants still have a quality bullpen, even with some of their Deadline deals. I think this one should be a low-scoring game with a day game after a night game, how the series has gone so far, and maybe even with a little bit of a lookahead for the Padres in advance of their series against the Dodgers this weekend.

Pick: Under 8 (-115)

Philadelphia Phillies (-126, 8.5) at Cincinnati Reds

5:10 p.m. ET

Hunter Greene makes his much-anticipated return for the Reds as they take on the Phillies and Cristopher Sanchez, who has some renewed life in the NL Cy Young Award market after Paul Skenes’ dud last night against the Brewers. 

This will be Greene’s first MLB start since June 3, as he missed some time in May with a groin injury and then missed even more time when he further aggravated the injury. In four rehab starts, Greene allowed 11 runs on 10 hits, including four homers, with a 24/5 K/BB ratio in 13 innings of work. He topped out at 21 batters faced and 5.1 innings in his final tune-up, so he should be somewhere in the realm of 80 pitches tonight.

I ran a Baseball Savant Statcast query today about the Phillies against what I consider premium velocity, which is 97+ mph, where we will see Greene average with the fastball. The Phillies are eighth in SLG, fifth in wOBA, and 10th in batting average. Greene actually went heavier with the splitter in his minor league starts than he had at the MLB level, so I’m curious to see if that was more about trying to get a feel for the pitch or something that the Reds wanted him to work on. He’s only thrown 90 at the MLB level with 10 balls in play – five have gone for hits including a couple of homers.

The Phillies are fourth in batting runs on sliders and eighth on fastballs, which should make up 90ish% of Greene’s arsenal tonight. It’s always going to be tough to hit premium velo, but I would argue that Philly sets up much better than most teams.

And I hate this matchup for the Reds against Sanchez. The stellar southpaw has a 2.36 ERA with a 3.02 xERA and a 2.77 FIP in his 144.2 innings of work. He’s struck out over a batter per inning with a 57.6% GB%. That’s precisely the type of pitcher you’d like to back in a ballpark such as this one. Sanchez has allowed 10 homers. Greene has allowed nine in 85 fewer innings.

The Reds bullpen has a 4.19 ERA and a 5.02 FIP in the month of August, while the Phillies and their cast of relief additions have a 1.48 ERA with a 2.97 FIP. There’s a mispricing on this game in my opinion.

Pick: Phillies -126; Phillies Run Line -1.5 (+129)

Miami Marlins at Cleveland Guardians (-137, 8)

6:40 p.m. ET

The Marlins and Guardians played a tight contest last night and the potential is there for another one this evening. It will be Eury Perez and Gavin Williams here, as a couple of talented, stuff-heavy righties are the listed pitchers.

The above stat that I cited where the Phillies do well against velocity…well, the Guardians do not. Against pitches of 97+ mph, the Guardians are 29th in batting average at .185, dead last in SLG at .250, and dead last in wOBA at .244. Perez’s average FB velo? 97.8 mph. He’s averaged 97 mph or better in each of his 11 starts. Add in a very unique arm slot at 6-foot-8 and I think this is a really, really tough matchup for Cleveland’s offense.

Furthermore, the Guardians employ platoons at the highest rate in the league. Perez has held lefties to a .165/.264/.303 slash with a .256 wOBA. Righties have better numbers in all of those areas, but Cleveland is likely to run out eight or so left-handed bats.

Williams has lived very dangerously this season, as he has a 3.17 ERA with a 4.08 xERA and a 4.43 FIP in his 125 innings of work. His .252 BABIP and 81.2% LOB% are really carrying his statistical profile. He has cut down the walks recently, which has been the biggest positive for him and he does have just four runs allowed in 27.2 innings in the second half. Still, the Marlins are actually second in BA, second in SLG, and second in wOBA against premium velo and Williams still runs it up there in the 96-97 range, so I think it is a better matchup for them.

Cleveland’s been running good, so I don’t want to take the full game, despite the much better price on it, but I do think Miami is very live early in this one.

Pick: Marlins 1st 5 (-105)