MLB Best Bets Today October 2

No matter what happens, we have one more day of Wild Card action, as three Game 3s are on the schedule for Thursday. The Dodgers scored 18 runs in two games against the Reds to advance to the NLDS and will face the Phillies beginning with Game 1 on Saturday (series preview coming today). The other six Wild Card teams will play a pressure-packed, win or go home game today.

Staff aces have already been used, so we’re into the middle of the rotation guys now, which adds another degree of variance and uncertainty in what is already a volatile environment. It should be a dramatic day on the diamond and these matchups all have a lot of layers to them.

As I’ve been doing, I’ll hit on all three games with some thoughts and best bets where applicable.

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 October 2:

Tigers at Guardians (-127, 7)

3:08 p.m. ET

I know I keep referring to the “Comeback Kids of the Cuyahoga”, which is what Bob Uecker called the Cleveland Indians in Major League. It’s still a bummer that we lost Ueck earlier this year, but what a tremendous life he led and I think it seems fitting that the Cleveland baseball team seems to be living up to that moniker.

Initially, this line is too high to me. The Tigers are way better against lefties than righties, which is why Slade Cecconi is getting the call over Parker Messick, even though Messick is probably a better pitcher. Cecconi finished the season with a 5.07 ERA, 4.93 xERA, and a 4.64 FIP. He only posted a 20% K%, so the Guardians are going to have to play better defense behind him than they have in this series to this point. First pitch being three hours later means that the shadows are going to be a factor early in the game, but the sun shouldn’t be as brutal for the outfielders on fly balls and infielders on pop ups.

Cecconi allowed a 49.1% Hard Hit% and a 12.2% Barrel%, so he also got hit pretty hard. For whatever reason, his IFFB% dropped to 5.8%, so that’s a big problem because pop ups are effectively strikeouts and would have helped his low K%. Instead, his HR/FB% jumped to 15.5% and he allowed one of the highest Pull% marks in baseball at 45.1%.

Presumably, the plan here is to try to push Cecconi 1+ times through the order. The first time through, opponents only batted .229/.285/.359 with a .284 wOBA. The second time through, opponents batted .267/.311/.492 with a .342 wOBA. That’s when they hit 12 of the 24 home runs he allowed.

So, the instructions here are probably to empty the tank because you’re going three-ish innings. Joey Cantillo is a lefty, but he has a wicked changeup and he had strong reverse platoon splits with righties batting just .204/.274/.342 with a .272 wOBA. That means he’ll probably follow Cecconi and the hope will be to get two-ish innings from him.

My guess is that Stephen Vogt makes the move before Kerry Carpenter bats for the second time, though Cantillo did allow a .334 wOBA to LHP, but Carpenter mauls righties, so that’s the chance you take.

AJ Hinch doesn’t have to be as quick on the trigger with Jack Flaherty, who has the chance to back up his opinion from last season. Flaherty was traded to the Dodgers and got a World Series ring, but apparently he wasn’t over the trade from Detroit, as he said that the Tigers would have beaten the Guardians in the ALDS if they hadn’t traded him. Maybe he’s right.

Flaherty had a 4.64 ERA this season, but he had a 4.03 xERA and a 3.85 FIP in his 161 innings of work. Lefties did hit .248/.337/.425 with a .333 wOBA compared to righties with a .231/.281/.385 slash and a .291 wOBA. To start this game, Cleveland will have eight lefties in the lineup, including their switch hitters.

One thing I really liked yesterday out of Vogt is that he didn’t pull his lefties when Tyler Holton came into the game. He knows that Troy Melton, Rafael Montero, Kyle Finnegan, and Will Vest are Hinch’s go-to guys, so you just have to grin and bear it with any lefty vs. lefty Holton plate appearances.

This game is an outstanding chess match. But, I do think Cleveland is too big of a favorite. I’m obviously okay with losing this bet as a Guardians fan, but with Cecconi’s bad contact management, Cade Smith’s 50 pitches over the last two days, Hunter Gaddis’ 39 pitches, Erik Sabrowski used back-to-back days, and the uncertainty of bringing Cantillo into the game, there are a lot of chances for this to go awry for Cleveland and so the price is just too high.

Pick: Tigers +105

Padres at Cubs (-115, 7.5)

5:08 p.m. ET

We get overlap here, as the Padres and Cubs start just after 5 p.m., which means that I hope fans and bettors have picture-in-picture or multi-view. MLB holding these game times hostage until late Wednesday night was asinine and very unfair to the fans who will be attending. And then they don’t even split the games properly. A league that has no idea how to market itself making dumbass decisions in the postseason is so on-brand that it’s laughable.

Anyway, Yu Darvish vs. Jameson Taillon here. I thought Craig Counsell made a massive mistake yesterday letting Shota Imanaga face Manny Machado a second time. I know you want to preserve the bullpen to some degree and it was only the fifth inning, but I wrote about Imanaga’s massive handedness splits and that played a huge role, as Machado hit the two-run tank and the Padres won 3-0. It didn’t help that Andrew Kittredge opening backfired as he gave up a run, but still. Counsell should have been way more proactive, especially when you consider that Machado just missed a very hittable fastball the first time he faced Imanaga.

Guess it doesn’t matter now because we’re here and it is what it is, but managerial decisions are magnified in the postseason with this kind of run environment and that was a very bad one.

Taillon had a 3.68 ERA with a 3.89 xERA and a 4.66 FIP in 129.2 innings during the regular season. He gave up 24 homers and only had 98 strikeouts, leading to the high FIP. Obviously that is a major concern in the postseason run environment, where the long ball is how teams score a majority of their runs. But it is worth noting that Taillon gave up 22 of his homers before the All-Star Break and only two in 34.1 innings in the second half, holding opponents to a .194/.237/.298 slash with a .236 wOBA.

Taillon returned to the pitching staff on August 19 and only allowed one Barrel over 100 batted ball events with a 33% Hard Hit%. If he has that type of command today, the Cubs are in decent shape. Compare that with Darvish, whose season didn’t start until July 7 and he finished with a 5.38 ERA and a 4.82 FIP. He gave up 14 homers in 72 innings, but did limit hard contact with a 33% Hard Hit% and an 8.9% Barrel%.

Manager Mike Shildt is going to have a quick hook on Darvish here. After all, he had a 7.26 ERA in 31 road innings with a .273/.318/.529 slash and a .360 wOBA. There is no NLDS if you don’t win today, so we could see extended appearances from the relievers. He also has Michael King in his back pocket to deploy if necessary. King came back for one game on August 9 after missing nearly three months and then hit the IL for another month. He gave up eight runs to the Mets on September 16, but finished the season with 7.2 scoreless innings, albeit one of those appearances was against the White Sox.

Still, King’s stuff is stellar and he’s more of a swing and miss guy than Darvish is at this stage of their careers. If King can be the bridge to Mason Miller, who has been obscenely good in this series and threw a 104.5 mph pitch on the black at the knees yesterday, the Padres will have this set up how they want.

Counsell doesn’t really have a Taillon alternative, unless he thinks it’s Collin Rea or Aaron Civale. It’s a tough ask for any of their pitch-to-contact longmen. I’m sitting on the Cubs series price at -125 from the start of the series. And I will spend a good chunk of time today debating the Padres as a short pup to buy off of it. Ultimately, I don’t think I’m going to because I want to trust my original handicap that the Cubs have more power and that’s the difference.

No bet from me on this game, but I’ll keep an eye out for live opportunities.

Red Sox at Yankees (-164, 7.5)

8:08 p.m. ET

Isn’t it funny how baseball works? These two storied franchises have combined payrolls in excess of $540 million and the season comes down to a couple of rookie starters. Connelly Early and Cam Schlittler each toe the rubber for the biggest starts of their lives. Early only has 19.1 MLB innings to his name, but he’s been outrageously good in his four starts, allowing six runs on 17 hits with a 29/4 K/BB ratio. The 23-year-old southpaw has struck out 59.1% of the left-handed batters he has faced (13/22) so far. Obviously the task at hand is to not let Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton beat him.

Early had a 2.60 ERA with a 2.74 FIP in the minors over 100.1 innings of work, striking out 132 against 40 walks. I’m torn here. Pitchers that have control “issues” in the minors with high walk rates often iron them out at the MLB level, where the catchers are better and the overall atmosphere and environment are better. So I’m not really concerned that Early walked 9.7% of minor league hitters, at least not long-term. In the biggest start of his career, against a lineup that had the second-lowest team Chase Rate in baseball, it’s a little more of a concern.

Schlittler mowed his way through minor leaguers this season as well, posting a 2.82 ERA with a 2.51 FIP in 76.2 innings between Double-A and Triple-A. He, though, has 14 starts and 73 innings to his name at the MLB level with a 2.96 ERA, 3.98 xERA, and a 3.74 FIP. I think the biggest thing for Schlittler is that he allowed six home runs in his first five starts and has only allowed a couple since. Remember – home runs are the way teams score in the playoffs.

Early offsets the home runs by being an extreme ground ball guy. Schlittler is not a ground ball guy. The opposite in fact, so him allowing two homers over his final 48.1 innings speaks to better pitch usage and command. He only allowed a 6.4% Barrel% in that span over nine starts.

The bullpens are probably the deciding factors here, leading to a reasonable stance on a Red Sox wager. David Bednar and Devin Williams have worked both games in this series and three of the last four. Fernando Cruz is also in that same boat. After Luke Weaver’s Game 1 meltdown, you have to wonder how excited Aaron Boone is to go to him. The long relievers are all intact, so you may see Will Warren empty the tank for an inning or something.

Boston did not use Aroldis Chapman yesterday and he was the only reliever used in Game 1. Garrett Whitlock is probably unavailable after throwing 47 pitches, but everybody else is usable. I didn’t take a pre-series position here. I did take the Red Sox in Game 1 and then took the Yankees series price at a better number after that one. As I wrote yesterday, the Yankees at +170 is worth a bet and they did win. And now they are effectively -165 for the series based on this Game 3 line, which is about where it was pre-series.

I do think the Red Sox are live today. It’s also a way to freeroll the game with Yankees +170 and Red Sox +134 today if you read yesterday’s column and also jumped in on New York. Either way, I think this line is too high because this one could swing either way based on the starters and the volatility of bullpens. So, Boston is the play, but hopefully you’ve got a profit locked up either way by taking the Yankees series price before Game 2.

Pick: Red Sox +134