MLB Best Bets Today September 23
Big games are on the betting board again for Major League Baseball, as we only have five days left of the regular season. There are some getaway day games today and it’s really a toss up how those will go, since one is part of a doubleheader and the other two feature teams with no playoff aspirations. Most of the games, though, are in the evening and have some sort of postseason implication, but not all of them. It’s still guesswork across the map this late in the season and you’ll be paying some inflated prices on teams in “must-win” situations, so keep all of that in mind as you navigate the evening action.
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.
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 September 23:
Brewers vs. Phillies Prediction
Pick: Phillies +105
The Phillies are knocking on the door of clinching a playoff spot, as they need a win and a Diamondbacks loss to do so today. I’m not sure that they get the latter, given that the Snakes play the Rockies, but Philly can at least move a game closer on their own accord.
It will be Logan Henderson and Aaron Nola in this one and I do think that we’re going to see the Brewers protect Henderson a bit in this start. While he has nowhere near the workload that Jacob Misiorowski does because he missed about six weeks from late May to early July, Henderson is clearly the No. 2 starter option for the Brew Crew and he needs to be protected as such. He went five innings last time out against the Pirates and allowed three runs on six hits, including two homers, though he did strike out eight.
Misiorowski only went three innings and then exited the ballgame in his last start. I’m not sure Henderson’s outing will be that short, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a cap of 80 pitches. All of the Milwaukee relievers are well-rested except for Colton Gordon, who threw 70 pitches yesterday. Milwaukee still has the top seed to play for, but they’re almost a lock to get a bye.
The Phillies have gotten quite a bit of good work from Nola recently. He’s coming off of seven shutout against the Mets and hasn’t allowed more than two runs in a start since August 3. Over his last 10 starts, the veteran right-hander has a 2.10 ERA with a 3.69 xERA and a 4.30 FIP. His 97.6% LOB% is not sustainable and is something that may very well be fade-worthy come playoff time, but he’s getting lots of chases right now and has an above average SwStr% that has gotten him into a lot of favorable counts.
Thanks to Monday’s off day, the Phillies bullpen is in pretty good shape as well. Jhoan Duran threw 24 pitches yesterday and Alex McFarlane threw 21, but they should all be usable tonight.
Given their postseason shortcomings in recent years, I think the Brewers are more focused on positioning themselves for next week and that may have taken some of the edge away.
Guardians vs. Red Sox Prediction
Pick: Red Sox -137
Maybe this is something of an emotional hedge for this Guardians fan, but there aren’t many things to like about tonight’s game in my estimation. We’ll start with Foster Griffin, who really hasn’t worked out the way that the Guardians brass had hoped when he was acquired at the Trade Deadline. He has a 5.79 ERA with a 4.98 xERA and a 3.98 FIP in his 37.1 innings of work. There are some bad luck elements to his stat line, like a .363 BABIP and a 63.8% LOB%, but that’ll happen with limited swing-and-miss upside and not a whole lot of chase.
The Red Sox probably aren’t fully locked in right now since they can’t really move up or down in the standings, but pitching to contact at Fenway Park is never a positive thing. That’s what Griffin will probably end up doing here and that’s not something that I like when looking at this game.
On the Red Sox side, Sonny Gray gets the call. Per Statcast, Gray throws six different pitches, five of them at least 16% of the time. The Guardians struggle with a lot of offspeed stuff and really anything that moves a lot. They don’t hit for much power and it’s hard to lock in on a pitch with a guy like Gray, who has a 2.82 ERA with a 3.83 xERA and a 3.50 FIP in his age-36 season with a career-best 17 wins. He’s not going for any special benchmarks or anything and I could see him go a solid five like Payton Tolle did yesterday, but he might also have more runway as a veteran.
Either way, I don’t like where things currently stand in middle relief for the Guardians, where Tim Herrin, Craig Yoho, Matt Festa, and Daniel Espino are all iffy. If they can get to Cade Smith, they’ll be in good shape, though he’s been ridden extremely hard lately.
The only leverage reliever the Red Sox used yesterday was Erik Miller. I don’t know if Aroldis Chapman will be available but the team would probably like to get him in good form heading into Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Too many things pointing in Boston’s favor tonight, even with the hefty price.
