MLB Best Bets Today October 12
NLCS Game 2 and ALCS Game 1 are on the MLB calendar for today, as we’ll have the Dodgers and Brewers first before the two teams hop a cross-country flight to LA. The Guardians celebrated hard on Saturday night and then took Sunday to recover, while also taking the trek down to Tampa to get that series underway. It should be an excellent evening for baseball.
Throughout the playoffs, I’ll look at every game on the schedule, even if I don’t have any bets. I’ll typically do this on the morning of the games, trying to achieve as much lead time as possible. Bullpen usage is critically important in the postseason, so I’d be doing a major disservice to do anything before the games are finished and that usually means writing up my thoughts in the morning.
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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, the 1st 5 Innings Analyzer, and Umpire Stats.
Here are the MLB best bets today for October 12:
Dodgers (-136, 7) vs. Brewers
5 p.m. ET
I was texting back and forth with VSiN By The Books host Jensen Lewis last week and we both agreed that Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the pitcher still standing in the playoffs that we’d want in a must-win game. Today is not a must-win game for LA, but it sure would be nice to head home with a split in the 2-3-2 format. Tarik Skubal was good on Sunday, but the Brewers bullpen saved the day after Jacob Misiorowski’s fairly early exit. There’s some pressure on Logan Henderson here to give a little length, but also to try and match wits with Yamamoto.
Yamamoto debuted in the Majors back in 2024 after a storied career in Japan. He heads into this outing with 10 career playoff starts and one relief appearance to his name, posting a 2.14 ERA with a 3.14 FIP in 63 innings of work. He’s struck out 58 and walked just 13, including a 10-strikeout performance against the Padres in the Wild Card series with just one run allowed on four hits.
He has a career 2.61 ERA with a 2.96 xERA and a 3.04 FIP over 448.2 innings of work. He really is a special pitcher who throws a lot of strikes, keeps the ball in the park, and induces a lot of weak contact. Per his Pitch Values at FanGraphs, every single one of his pitches graded above average and five of his six pitches had Stuff+ grades above average. He also had a velo uptick during the regular season this year and most guys usually reach back for a little extra in the postseason.
Henderson’s first career playoff start was a bit of an adventure, as he allowed one earned run, two total, on just two hits, but walked three and only struck out four out of 22 batters faced. Henderson is an extreme fly ball guy, the opposite of Yamamoto, who is more of a ground ball artist. But, Henderson was still highly effective, posting a 2.47 ERA, 2.73 xERA, and a 3.32 FIP over his 98.1 innings in the regular season. He struck out 110 and only walked 19. Avoiding walks against this Dodgers lineup is a very important trait for a pitcher to have, but we did see some control issues from him against the Padres.
Both teams almost exclusively used leverage guys out of the pen, but they were also both rested, so there are no bullpen concerns in this one.
I’ve been racking my brain to figure out a way to support Yamamoto without laying the Dodgers ML price. His Outs Recorded prop is juiced very heavily. So are a lot of his run props. I expect him to be good here. Maybe I’ll find a live opportunity.
I also thought about fading Henderson in the first inning, as he had a walk, wild pitch, and an RBI single against in the first inning against the Padres. He also walked two batters in the second. But, he only allowed two first-inning runs in 18 starts during the regular season, so I’m not totally enamored with that.
Even though he doesn’t walk many guys, I’ll go with Over 1.5 Walks Allowed (+140). The price is good on Henderson to be a little bit wild and this is obviously the biggest start of his career. LA walked six times yesterday, including three off of Misiorowski.
Pick: Logan Henderson (MIL) Over 1.5 Walks Allowed (+140)
Guardians vs. Rays (-174, 6.5)
8 p.m. ET
The Guardians have gotten some really big lifts in the postseason from trade acquisitions, as Patrick Bailey and Jo Adell have come up with some clutch knocks. But, they also got some excellent relief work from Foster Griffin in Game 3 and he’ll get rewarded for that by getting the start here in Game 1. I expected a Daniel Espino/Joey Cantillo piggyback, though Cantillo did struggle in his appearance against Chicago. The Guardians thought enough of Griffin to trade for him at the Deadline and now we’ll see what he can provide.
The Rays will counter with Drew Rasmussen, who took a no-hitter into the eighth against the Yankees in the Wild Card Round. Rasmussen walked a couple, struck out 10, and was in control over the course of a 1-0 game. The Yankees only scored five runs in the three games of that series and Rasmussen really set the tone with his 101 pitches, 69 of them for strikes.
It was actually just his second career playoff start and fourth appearance overall in the postseason. He’s been extremely good for a long time, but staying healthy has been an issue. His 172 innings this season were the most he’s thrown at the MLB level in his career after debuting back in 2020. He has a 2.83 ERA with a 3.27 xERA and a 3.15 FIP over his 632.2 innings of work.
He has a deep arsenal with a four-seamer, cutter, sinker, and changeup, of which we should see quite a bit of usage of that pitch against this Guardians lineup. He allowed three runs, but only two were earned, over 12 innings against the Guardians during the regular season with 15 strikeouts against two walks. Lefties only batted .205/.253/.315 with a .252 wOBA against Rasmussen over 392 plate appearances and he struck out 28.3% of them compared to a 22.7% K% against righties. I don’t anticipate Cleveland having much offensive success against him or in this series. Their high level of visibility, both within the series and over the regular season, helped them with the White Sox. They don’t have that luxury here.
As mentioned, Griffin was excellent in his lone postseason appearance, as he faced 11 batters and struck out seven of them with a heavy diet of sweepers. He did give up a run on a couple hits and a hit by pitch. After being acquired by the Guardians, he wasn’t great, posting a 5.19 ERA with a 4.95 xERA and a 3.54 FIP in 43.1 innings of work. He only had an 8.9% HR/FB%, though, a big improvement on his 14.5% HR/FB% with the Nationals, but he allowed a .381 BABIP and had just a 67.8% LOB%, hence the big gap between ERA and FIP.
The Rays did struggle with southpaws, as they only batted .248/.315/.364 with a 90 wRC+ and a .300 wOBA. Their 36 HR in that split were tied for the fewest in baseball with the Marlins. They still put a ton of balls in play, but Griffin did have a 35.5% Hard Hit% and a terrific 5.8% Barrel% after heading to Cleveland.
I don’t think Cleveland does much off of Rasmussen here. I’m not sure what the Rays do against Griffin. Against the White Sox, Griffin threw 35 pitches to lefties and just 18 pitches to righties. Righties posted a .265/.318/.415 slash with a .321 wOBA, while lefties hit just .204/.269/.376. This will not be as favorable of a matchup for him.
Guardians Team Total Under 2.5 at even money intrigues me here. I also don’t know that the Guards will use their top leverage arms and I think we could even see Slade Cecconi piggyback Griffin here, as he’s been added to the roster. No bet from me in this game, but I’ll be looking for some live betting opportunities, especially with Cleveland’s tired bullpen coming out of the Chicago series.
