MLB Best Bets Today May 14

It is a mammoth MLB slate today with 17 games thanks to a couple of rainouts yesterday. The Twins and Orioles will play two and so will the Cardinals and Phillies, as Mother Nature was angry on the East Coast. So, we’ve got a few early starts, including a getaway day game in Cleveland, as the Brewers head home for a day off and the Guardians spend tomorrow’s off day heading to Cincinnati.

While it is a very full dance card, there are a lot of sizable favorites today, so it is a little bit more difficult to navigate the slate than I would expect with so many options available.

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 14:

Arizona Diamondbacks at San Francisco Giants (-112, 8.5)

3:45 p.m. ET

A businessman’s special is on tap at Oracle Park with a lunchtime start that could allow a few people to bust out of work early and enjoy a couple brats and beers at the ballpark. The Diamondbacks and Giants wrap up their three-game set with a rubber match, as San Francisco won last night and Arizona won Monday night.

Eduardo Rodriguez and Jordan Hicks make up today’s starting pitching matchup. It’s been ugly for Rodriguez of late, as he’s allowed eight runs twice over his last three outings. On the whole, he’s allowed 37 runs on 53 hits in just 40.2 innings. He’s running a .375 BABIP and a 54.6% LOB%, so positive regression may be coming, but he’s also allowed 12 Barrels in eight starts and just allowed four with a 66.7% Hard Hit% to the Dodgers. His command is simply not where it needs to be.

He hasn’t consistently gotten swings and misses and actually has had his two lowest chase rates of the season in his last two outings. While there are positive regression signs in the profile with a 6.86 ERA, 4.46 xERA, a 4.41 FIP, and a 3.71 xFIP, I just don’t love where the command is at and this is now a second straight season with a major home run issue in the face of depressed velocity. His Hard Hit% sits at 38.3% and would be the second-highest of his career, better than only last season. I think his skill set is just deteriorating very quickly, maybe a result of chronic knee problems.

Hicks is full of positive regression signs. He has a 5.82 ERA with a 3.55 xERA and a 3.17 FIP over his 43.1 innings of work. Like Rodriguez, a high BABIP and a low LOB% are to blame, as he’s got a .344 BABIP against and a 57.9% LOB%. Unlike Rodriguez, though, Hicks is a ground ball machine, so his problems aren’t home run related, thus I feel like his numbers winding up where they should be has a much better chance.

His 58.5% GB% is among the league’s best and he’s also cut his HR/FB% down to 6.7%, a tremendous number given the small sample size of fly balls. Oracle Park does suppress power, but an afternoon game with winds blowing out and less of a marine layer might help fly balls carry a bit more, so that’s another advantage for Hicks over Rodriguez.

The Giants also boast the league’s top bullpen by ERA and a top-five pen by FIP. Arizona’s bullpen has been a little bit better than I expected, but I’ll take SF’s pen if this game is close late.

Pick: Giants -112

Boston Red Sox at Detroit Tigers (-225, 7)

6:40 p.m. ET

The Red Sox and Tigers square off today and it will be a battle between Hunter Dobbins and Tarik Skubal. Dobbins has been quite good in his first four MLB starts with a 2.78 ERA, 2.88 xERA, and a 3.37 FIP. I don’t know about the sustainability of his low walk rate and his 80.2% LOB%, so while I was extremely tempted to take a shot with Boston here and fade Skubal, I’m going to go a different route.

The Red Sox Team Total Over is just 2.5 in this game. It is at -125 on the vig, but I’m thoroughly intrigued by this bet. I also like Over 1.5 at +135 for the 1st 5. I may very much regret going against Skubal, who has been magnificent with a 2.08 ERA, 2.51 xERA, and a 2.12 FIP in his 47.2 innings with 60 strikeouts against just five walks.

However, hear me out. The Red Sox rank seventh in wRC+ against lefties at 114. They’re batting .269/.353/.416 in that split. I don’t expect them to draw a lot of walks against Skubal, but I think they’ll at least have better pitch selectivity than most of the teams that Skubal has faced.

Skubal has faced the Rangers, Angels, Orioles, Royals, Brewers, Yankees, Mariners, and Dodgers over his eight starts. Those teams right now rank 20th, 29th, 30th, 27th, 22nd, 1st, 10th, and 3rd against LHP. So Skubal has faced five straight offenses that rank 20th or worse and 20th in wRC+ against lefties grades out as 21% below league average. The Red Sox are undoubtedly a step up in class. So, that’s the Over 1.5 at +135.

Closer Will Vest threw 36 pitches yesterday. Three other relievers threw 21+ pitches, including Tommy Kahnle, who was given a blown save for his efforts. I’ll take my chances with these two plays, as Skubal is elite, but this is a much better lineup than he’s seen lately.

Picks: Red Sox 1st 5 Team Total Over 1.5 Runs (+135); Red Sox Full-Game Team Total Over 2.5 (-125)

Tampa Bay Rays at Toronto Blue Jays (-162, 8)

7:07 p.m. ET

AL East rivals do battle here as Tampa Bay and Toronto follow up last night’s thriller with the middle game of the series. A couple of right-handers square off here with Ryan Pepiot for the visitors and Chris Bassitt for the hosts.

Pepiot is riding a bit of a high note into this game, while Bassitt is going in the opposite direction. Over eight starts this season, Pepiot has a 3.86 ERA with a 4.43 xERA and a 4.88 FIP in 44.1 innings of work. His home run rate and a decreased K% have been the primary culprits. He only has seven strikeouts over his last three starts, but has also only allowed four runs over 16.1 innings in starts against the Padres, Yankees, and Phillies. Those are three talented lineups, but Pepiot was able to navigate them.

I also have to think Pepiot is thrilled to be away from Steinbrenner Field. As a guy who normally throws a lot of strikes and is a fly ball pitcher who works up in the zone with the fastball, the move from Tropicana Field to outdoors has been problematic. He made his first five starts at home and gave up eight homers after a good debut on March 28 against the hapless and pathetic Rockies. He hasn’t allowed a homer in any of his last three starts.

Bassitt gave up just two runs over his first four starts of the season, but he has now allowed 16 over his last four outings. He’s given up four earned runs in three of them. He still has solid numbers for the season with a 3.35 ERA and a 3.32 FIP, but his 80.6% LOB% is starting to creep down and his command has not been nearly as good of late as it was early in the season. Bassitt has allowed six home runs over his last three starts and 28 hits.

He’s allowed five of his nine Barrels and has allowed 25 hard-hit balls in his last three starts against the Yankees, Guardians, and Angels, so hardly a murderer’s row of opponents.

Both teams have had bullpen hiccups at times, but the Rays do have a top-10 bullpen by ERA and the Jays have had some big blow-ups over the last couple weeks.

Pick: Rays +136

Miami Marlins at Chicago Cubs (-230, 7.5)

7:40 p.m. ET

Way back in February, I highlighted Ryan Weathers as a guy that I was following very closely this season. In fact, he was my “Player To Watch” in my Marlins season preview. 

Here’s what I wrote about Weathers at that time:

I really want to dig into Weathers more. He inexplicably struggled at Marlins Park, allowing a .288/.348/.518 slash with a .368 wOBA over 33.2 innings compared to a .198/.270/.297 and a .256 wOBA in 53 road innings. Unfortunately, Weathers dealt with injuries and only threw 15.2 innings after the All-Star Break. Health is an ongoing concern with him, but after he harnessed his new-look arsenal with a 26/15 K/BB ratio in March/April, he had a 27/5 K/BB ratio in May and then a 14/0 in June over 8.1 innings before getting hurt.

Opposing batters only hit .193 with a .367 SLG on his changeup last season, a pitch that had a 10% bump in Whiff% year-over-year and a much higher spin rate. His sweeper generated a 51% Whiff% with a .118 BA and a .176 SLG against. But, hitters tattooed his fastball, batting .319 with a .451 SLG. He did have a velo uptick that is somewhat promising, but I think he needs to be like a 60% SW/CH guy as opposed to the 47.3% we saw last season. Or, I’d definitely swap the fastball for more sinkers. His fastball velo plays down because of his 6th percentile Extension, though he was in the 63rd percentile in FB spin rate after being well below average in 2021 and in the 42nd percentile in 2022.

I think Weathers is building towards a breakout, but he’ll need to stay healthy to get there.

Weathers makes his season debut for the Marlins here after a trio of rehab starts. He sat nearly 98 mph with the fastball and had increased velo across the board in his final tune-up at Triple-A. He only went five innings, but showed the Marlins what they needed to see in order to activate him for this start. If the 25-year-old could stay healthy, I would be expecting some really big things.

Weathers was only at 30% with his fastball usage and 44% if we include the sinker, so he’s inching closer towards that 60% SW/SL/CH mix that I’m hoping to see. That should generate a lot of Whiffs. He had eight Whiffs in his last rehab start and seven were on the sweeper/slider combo. I think he knows and the Marlins know what the plan should be and I think we see it in action today.

I like Weathers Over 3.5 Strikeouts at -105. I am a bit worried at how far he’ll go, given that he only threw 57 pitches last time out, but I’d think 65-70 would be the goal and he can get there in that number. He had a 63% Zone% in that last rehab start, so he pounded the zone, which should help his pitch efficiency in what could be a short start.

Pick: Ryan Weathers (MIA) Over 3.5 Strikeouts (-105)