MLB Best Bets Today August 6
We’re into double digits on this week’s Thursday MLB card with 11 games on the docket. Normally we don’t get that many as teams travel to their next stops or get a break from the grind, but not today, as only eight teams enjoy a day away from the diamond. A slight majority of today’s action comes at 4:10 p.m. ET or later, so there are some games to pick from for those who didn’t hop on the lunchtime games.
I’ll be posting my daily best bets Monday-Saturday with a Sunday Night Baseball preview on Sunday, as all the day games make it tough to get something out with lead time out here in Las Vegas. All lines are from DraftKings and are current at the time of publish. Please take the initiative to SHOP AROUND for the best odds. It matters. A lot.
One new offering this baseball season is our Opta AI Player Prop Projections. They are for VSiN Pro Subscribers only, so you can check out our current offers here. Zachary Cohen will be using those projections and his own handicapping to write up MLB player props.
Greg Peterson will have his best bets posted the night before and you can also check out his daily lines to see what looks to be off-market. Steve Makinen has also released his updated Bullpen Betting Systems and DraftKings Splits Systems, plus he’ll have a daily analytics report.
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 MLB tools powered by Ballpark Pal: Strikeout Projections, Park Factors, and YRFI Report.
Here are the MLB best bets today for August 6:
Tigers vs. Mariners Prediction
Pick: Mariners -124
It’s been a rough week for the Tigers, who started this West Coast road trip with four wins, but dropped last night’s game 4-2. This week has seen the trades of Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize, so this is a patchwork pitching staff just trying to figure things out. Unfortunately, one guy who really hasn’t figured things out this season is Framber Valdez, who gets the call today.
Valdez is having his worst season since he became a full-time MLB starter. He had a 5.86 ERA back in 2019 over just 70.2 innings with eight starts and 18 relief outings. This year marks the first time he’s had an ERA over 3.66 since that season, as he has a 4.41 ERA with a 4.32 xERA and a 4.13 FIP.
Valdez’s K% is down quite significantly from previous seasons, as he’s sitting at just 18.4%. Given that he’s a ground ball guy prone to hard contact, the lower K% has hurt in a lot of ways, as he’s still running a 43.4% Hard Hit% and has a BABIP against over .300 for the first time since the COVID year. He’s been fighting with his release point and arm angle all season long, with little consistency in those two areas. In his last start against the A’s, he danced around nine hits and two walks to allow just two runs over seven innings, but his spin rates were down and he allowed a lot of hard contact.
The Mariners are seventh in wOBA against LHP in the second half of the season, so we’ll see if they can take advantage of Valdez, who has allowed 4+ runs in four of his last nine starts, including one debacle in Chicago with six runs on five hits in just 10 batters faced.
Bryce Miller goes for the M’s today. He hasn’t allowed more than three runs in any of his home starts this season. Like most Mariners, he’s decidedly better at T-Mobile Park, where he has a 1.34 ERA in 33.2 innings of work compared to a 4.02 ERA in 40.1 innings on the road. He’s got a 37/5 K/BB ratio at home and has only allowed 17 hits out of 122 batters faced. He’s held opponents to a .147/.189/.233 slash. He’s allowed five runs over his last three home starts covering 18 innings. He’s allowed 11 runs in his last two road starts over 10.1 innings. He’s just a different guy at home and oozes confidence there.
The Mariners did use three of their leverage arms last night, but none of them had pitched since Sunday, so everybody is good to go in the event that they have a lead in the late innings today.
Twins vs. Royals Prediction
Pick: Royals -119
Bailey Ober will make his second straight start against the Royals, while Michael Wacha draws the Twins for the first time since June 5. That outing didn’t go well, but it’s been another pretty solid season for the wily vet. He’s allowed just four earned runs in his last three starts, including a start at Coors Field. He’s had some duds, but he has a 3.51 ERA with a 4.14 xERA and a 3.92 FIP over 22 starts and 138.1 innings.
I have to think Wacha was relieved to have the Trade Deadline come and go, as he is signed for next season and does have an option for 2028, but he could’ve been an attractive option to some needy team. His commitment isn’t that costly. The Twins are only slashing .229/.291/.366 in the second half with a .289 wOBA and an 82 wRC+ against righties. They haven’t done much in that split and have dropped four in a row, even as a quasi buyer at the Trade Deadline.
Ober has a 4.45 ERA with a 4.46 xERA and a 4.63 FIP over his 87 innings of work. He’s done a good job of limiting hard contact and inducing lazy fly balls, but his margin for error is thin, as he’s also allowed 14 homers. He only has 63 K on the season, so he doesn’t really get a lot of swings and misses and is subject to variance on balls in play. The Royals had three Barrels off of him in his July 30 start.
With a second straight crack at Ober, the Royals definitely have the chance at some success today and also just got Bobby Witt Jr. back on Tuesday, so he’s given them a little bit of a shot in the arm.
