MLB Best Bets Today October 25
The Dodgers pitching staff allowed four total runs in the sweep of the Brewers in the NLCS. They allowed 15 runs over four games to the Phillies in the NLDS. They gave up nine runs in one inning against the Blue Jays and 11 for the game to dig themselves a deficit in the World Series.
Credit to the Blue Jays, who had an excellent plan of attack against Blake Snell, who had been unhittable this postseason. There were a lot of questions about the Dodgers bullpen coming into the playoffs, but long starts from Snell, Game 2 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, and Shohei Ohtani quelled those concerns. At least until yesterday.
I have to say, I don’t think Emmet Sheehan was the right call in that situation for the Dodgers, as he pitched well during the regular season, but he’s been a gas can in the postseason. A bases loaded situation with no outs was not a good spot to bring in a kid unaccustomed to high leverage situations. It was early, but that was a spot to go to Blake Treinen and try to minimize the damage as much as possible. Instead, Sheehan and Anthony Banda poured petrol all over the mound.
On we go to Game 2, where the Dodgers better get a longer, more efficient start from Yamamoto or they may be going back home down 0-2.
By the way, I think these World Series player prop strategies are still very relevant the rest of the way.
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 25:
Dodgers (-150, 7.5) at Blue Jays
8 p.m. ET (FOX)
The series price still has LA favored at -120, at least according to DraftKings. They are favored to win this game with Yamamoto on the hill against Kevin Gausman. Lost in the 11-run outburst for Toronto is how Trey Yesavage found a way to battle through four innings without letting the game get out of hand. He had traffic on base pretty much all of the time, but only gave up two runs on four hits.
But, it was an example of how the Dodgers make a starter work. He struck out five, but he also walked three and threw nearly as many balls (36) as strikes (44). Gausman doesn’t have the same overpowering stuff that Yesavage can flash, but he has better control. He posted a 6.5% BB% this season and has never been higher than 8.7%, so he throws a lot of strikes and usually does a pretty good job taking the sting out of the bat by working down in the zone.
Here in the postseason, though, Gausman has been a little shaky. He’s only allowed four runs over 18 innings on 10 hits, but he also has a 12/9 K/BB ratio. A .161 BA against and a .167 BABIP against look a bit fortunate and he’s been able to strand 92.6% of baserunners. It is worth noting that three of his walks came in one relief inning, as he was called into a strange spot in Game 7 against the Mariners. It was his first relief appearance since the 2020 regular season. In his three starts, he walked six batters over 17 innings of work, which is more on par for him.
Like Yesavage, due to a similar pitch mix, including a splitter, Gausman had what we call “reverse platoon splits”. That is when a righty is better against left-handed batters and vice versa. Lefties only batted .193/.247/.339 against him with a .255 wOBA. Righties hit .238/.290/.374 with a .289 wOBA, so he was still very successful in that split, but not as successful as he was against lefties.
One of the developments that was interesting yesterday was that switch hitter Tommy Edman batted right-handed against Yesavage. Edman had an infield single and struck out against him, so I don’t think it really worked out, but it was still a choice. I’ll be curious to see if he does that against Gausman today.
I talked a lot about Snell’s high rate of walks and strikeouts and how the Blue Jays were going to put more balls in play against him because of their aggressiveness. Well, it paid off for them, as they had five runs on eight hits off of him in five innings. Snell still walked three and only struck out four, as the Blue Jays didn’t necessarily hit a lot of balls hard, with just a 79.5 mph average exit velocity, but they put balls in play.
They did hit a lot of balls hard off of the bullpen. Over just three innings, the Dodgers bullpen allowed eight hard-hit balls. Over five innings, the Blue Jays bullpen allowed just three hard-hit balls. But, back to Yamamoto, who was spectacular in the regular season and has been even better in the playoffs with four earned runs allowed on just 13 hits with an 18/4 K/BB ratio in 19.2 innings of work.
Yamamoto also boasted those reverse platoon splits thanks to his splitter, as lefties batted just .174/.236/.249 and righties hit .191/.276/.315 with a .265 wOBA. He struck out nearly 32% of batters faced in the second half and his BB% numbers are much stronger than Snell’s, so I’m wondering if the Blue Jays have nearly as much success in this matchup.
Not as much stands out to me for this game as yesterday’s, when both pitcher props hit with ease. I do like No Run 1st Inning (NRFI) as Gausman will get the two lefties in Ohtani and Freddie Freeman and that should be a better matchup for his arsenal than most. Yesavage had a 1-2-3 inning yesterday, while Snell worked out of a bases-loaded jam.
Yamamoto allowed just a .198/.279/298 slash with a .261 wOBA in the first inning. While he will face two or three righties, depending on how the inning goes, he should be just fine.
As far as the side and total, I lean Blue Jays just as a price play, especially since Yamamoto’s going to have to probably pitch into the 7th for the Dodgers to feel remotely comfortable with their bullpen situation. I also lean towards the Under. We had the four homers hit in Game 1, but the other 16 hits were all singles. I’m not sure we’ll keep up that batted ball pace the rest of the way.
Pick: No Run 1st Inning (-120)
