MLB Best Bets Today May 22
A handful of day games are on the docket for Wednesday, as we’ll be greeted with five early starts across the 15 games on the betting board. That leaves a lot of variety with lead time, which is always important to me with this article. It’s only fair to all readers to give as much time between publish and first pitch as possible, so I’ll be focusing on those games the most unless there’s something I simply can’t pass up early.
As a heads up, there will NOT be a Thursday article, as I have a prior commitment in the morning.
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Here are the MLB best bets today for May 22:
San Diego Padres (-125, 9) at Cincinnati Reds
6:40 p.m. ET
Michael King and Nick Martinez are the listed hurlers in this one, as Martinez draws the starting nod against his former team. This will be a straight start for Martinez, who followed opener Brent Suter last time out against the Dodgers and followed him with five straight scoreless innings. But, now he’s back and home and the weather is warming up in Cincinnati, so I have a few concerns.
Historically, we’ve seen Martinez as more of a ground ball guy, but he has a 32.5% GB% this season. Usually we see pitchers that go from being ground ball guys to more of a neutral pitcher, or even a fly ball pitcher, do so in the interest of generating more strikeouts. That has not been the case with Martinez this season, as he has a 17.7% K%.
As a starter this season over 21 innings, Martinez has allowed a .337/.367/.489 slash with a .373 wOBA against. As a reliever, he’s allowed a .164/.188/.230 slash. Turning lineups over is difficult and that is where Martinez has had the problems, as he goes a second and third time through the order.
Ultimately, this wager is a bet on King against a strikeout-prone Reds lineup that doesn’t walk very much. King has a 4.31 ERA with a 4.96 FIP, due to elevated HR and walk rates, but he’s allowed seven of his 11 homers in two starts and he had seven walks in his second start of the season against the Giants. Consistency has absolutely been an issue for him, but I really feel like he’s deserved a better fate.
King has a 25.7% K% and draws a Cincinnati lineup that ranks 30th in wRC+ against righties with a mark of 77 and a K% of 27.2%. The Padres, for what it’s worth, now rank second in wRC+ against righties, trailing only the Dodgers. But, back to King, who has a 34.7% Hard Hit% against, so he’s done a nice job of limiting hard contact, but doesn’t have the run metrics to show for it.
Eight of the 11 homers he has allowed have been multi-run shots, so that’s been his primary issue. But, I don’t think the Reds will get a lot of baserunners and they’re an objectively bad offense against righties.
The Padres pen is 11th in ERA and 11th in FIP. The Reds pen is 20th in ERA and 19th in FIP. I feel confident if the Padres have a lead to protect here and also confident in the offense’s ability to add on.
Pick: Padres -125
San Francisco Giants at Pittsburgh Pirates (-122, 7.5)
6:40 p.m. ET
We should have a top-tier pitching matchup here between Blake Snell and Jared Jones, as the Giants and Pirates continue their weekday set. Snell is returning from a stint on the IL to make this start, which will be his fourth in a Giants uniform. Jones is making his 10th start of what has been a dynamic rookie year to this point.
I want to buy some stock in Snell right now. He made two rehab starts and didn’t allow a hit over nine innings with 17 strikeouts against one walk and one hit batter. Snell had a really weird lead-up to the season, as he didn’t sign until March 19 and had to hurry to get ready for the season. Obviously he was preparing on his own with a routine that he thought was best, but it’s different being in camp and working with the catchers and coaches. As a result, Snell’s first three starts were quite poor and he probably was working through some discomfort.
Now that he had some time to get acclimated and catch his breath, I wouldn’t be surprised if he came back with a vengeance. Snell had an immaculate inning down in the minors (nine pitches, nine strikes, three strikeouts), so it was great to see him pounding the strike zone. The Giants are really smart with pitchers and I expect that they’ve worked on some things with Snell during the downtime and with those two minor league outings.
Jones has been awesome this season, but he has allowed nine homers in nine starts and he’s had a couple of starts recently with limited strikeouts. He only had three strikeouts and allowed three runs on six hits to the Giants back on April 28 and only had four strikeouts in his first start against the Cubs.
He has allowed a 43.7% Hard Hit% and a 9.6% Barrel%, so when he isn’t generating a lot of strikeouts, he will give up some hard contact. I think the fly ball stylings coupled with the occasional command mistake get magnified as the weather warms up.
To me, Snell is worth a shot as a 1st 5 dog today. The Pirates are 26th in wRC+ for the season and 26th in wRC+ in May. Their good numbers against lefties for the full season mostly came early in the year, as they have just a 93 wRC+ against southpaws in the month of May.
Pick: Giants 1st 5 (+100)
Colorado Rockies at Oakland Athletics (-130, 8)
9:40 p.m. ET
The Rockies and A’s played a thriller last night and it wound up being a game that ended Oakland’s eight-game losing streak. I think the A’s will be back in the win column again tonight with the matchup between Mitch Spence and Austin Gomber.
Gomber is one of the league’s biggest negative regression candidates at present. He comes into this one with a 3.02 ERA, 4.35 xERA, and a 4.82 FIP in 50.2 innings of work. His .238 BABIP and 86.1% LOB% are doing a ton of heavy lifting when it comes to his profile and those are two areas I look very closely at when analyzing a pitcher’s past and future performance.
Despite being more of a ground ball guy with a 43.1% GB%, Gomber’s running that super low BABIP, which typically doesn’t happen. You also don’t normally see a ground ball guy with a 9.7% Barrel%, but that is the case for Gomber. The problem for the A’s against lefties is that they have a 25.1% K%, but Gomber ranks in the 17th percentile in K%. He has allowed a .303 wOBA, but has a .331 xwOBA. Somebody is going to deal this regression to him and I think Oakland could be that team.
Spence just made his first career MLB start and was impressive against the Royals with 4.2 innings and just one run allowed. He has a 3.90 ERA with a 3.13 FIP and is an extreme ground ball guy who creates some additional margin for error with swings and misses. He low-key has good stuff with a strong slider and a fastball that cuts and sinks. I think he’s a nice pitcher and, despite a couple rocky outings here and there, he’s a nice addition to the rotation in the face of injury.
The A’s have had one of the league’s strongest bullpens throughout the season and they’ll have a little bit of a lift since Spence isn’t conditioned to be a six-inning type of guy or anything like that yet, so fresh arms will be coming in as Spence tires and I think that provides a boost in the middle innings.
Oakland is fifth in bullpen fWAR, 12th in ERA, and fifth in FIP, while Colorado is 26th in fWAR, 27th in ERA, and 26th in FIP.
Pick: Athletics -130
