MLB Best Bets Today October 7
Despite MLB’s best efforts to separate the AL and the NL for TV purposes, all eight teams take the field today and game times range from 4 p.m. ET to 10 p.m. ET. All four games are elimination games as well, as the Guardians, Braves, Yankees, and Padres are in must-win situations, while the White Sox, Dodgers, Rays, and Brewers have more margin for error, but would like to finish things off today.
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 7:
Guardians vs. White Sox (-121, 8)
4 p.m. ET
With the exceptions of Gavin Williams and Sean Burke, every working arm is available in this one, as the Guardians and White Sox play on the South Side. Perhaps the bye and the day off in between games has kept Cleveland from getting in rhythm, but this was a bad offense during the season and has shown to be a bad offense in the postseason. Cleveland has accumulated just seven hits and two runs, one of them as a result of a throwing error in the first inning of Game 2.
I have no reason to believe that Cleveland’s offense suddenly picks it up in this one. Will Venable has done an incredible job of mixing and matching relievers and creating difficult matchups for the Guardians. Venable has also had his finger on the pulse with when to pull guys, which is arguably more important than knowing which guys to match up with. In Game 2, even though Burke was the bulk guy, he didn’t go to him right away, opting to use some higher-leverage relievers before the game state settled down.
We’ll see if he does the same here with Davis Martin, who is the bulker behind opener Sean Newcomb. Newcomb is left-handed and Martin is right-handed and Venable has had the luxury of throwing multiple lefties against the Cleveland offense. Martin, who had a 3.95 ERA with a 4.69 xERA and a 3.83 FIP may very well be the worst pitcher that Venable has used in the series, and that’s hardly a slight against him. He has only thrown 0.2 innings since September 20, so I do have concerns about how sharp he’ll be. That said, Venable won’t overextend him if he can help it.
The Guardians will roll with Daniel Espino as their opener and then turn it over to Joey Cantillo. Throwing strikes will be the key for Cantillo, as he had a 4.00 ERA as a starter with 77 BB in 144 innings, but has thrown 15 shutout innings with a 17/4 K/BB ratio in relief. That’s precisely what Cleveland is hoping to see out of him in that role today. The White Sox haven’t seen a lot of lefties in this series, as Foster Griffin has warmed up, but not pitched. Erik Sabrowski was the losing pitcher in Game 2 and has worked in both games of the series. Tim Herrin has also appeared, but he’s a guy better suited for lower leverage.
Right now, I think the White Sox are just the sharper team, clearly have the better offense, and have the ability to hit home runs, something Cleveland has not shown at all to this point. Call it an emotional hedge if you want, but I think the season for my Guardians comes to an end today. Including Burke’s stellar relief effort in Game 2, the White Sox have a 1.04 bullpen ERA in the postseason thus far and opposing batters are hitting just .122.
Pick: White Sox -121
Dodgers (-155, 7.5) vs. Braves
6 p.m. ET
It will be a battle of Tylers in Atlanta, as Tyler Glasnow toes the rubber for the Dodgers and Tyler Mahle goes for the Braves. Mahle has been a huge addition for the Braves, as he threw seven solid innings against the Phillies in the Wild Card Round and had a 1.99 ERA in his nine starts with Atlanta after coming over from the Giants at the Trade Deadline. It is kind of crazy that in a better pitcher’s park, Mahle had an ERA north of 5.00 with San Fran, but baseball is an odd game.
Mahle shined in his first career postseason start, mostly by keeping the ball on the ground. He did strike out six over his seven innings, but his GB% was around 62%. He also only walked one. Forcing the Dodgers to put the ball in play is actually your best hope against this lineup, especially if that means keeping the ball down and inducing a lot of worm-burners. Mahle only had a 45% GB% with Atlanta during the regular season, so we’ll see if he can find the same success in this start. I talked about this prior to his last start, but the biggest change for Mahle with the Braves was his increased splitter usage. He bumped the pitch up about 13% in usage to around 38.5%. He threw 58% splitters in that start against the Phillies.
Expect Mahle to leverage the splitter very heavily again here, but the Dodgers are a much better lineup against that pitch than the Phillies were. So, we’ll see what this one looks like for him.
Glasnow only threw 74 innings for the Dodgers during the regular season, as the Dodgers were once again able to manage his workload and be very careful with his return from injury. He had a 3.53 ERA with a 2.74 FIP over the course of the regular season and had a 1.69 ERA in 21.1 innings in last year’s postseason. He’s a giant of a human being, so he provides a much different look and arm slot than a lot of guys. Add a little extra velo with the adrenaline of the playoffs and he’s a guy that can rack up a ton of strikeouts, but he can get a little wild as well.
I don’t have a bet in this one. I do think that the Dodgers win and end the series, but I don’t like the price. Glasnow also hasn’t pitched since September 24, which is a long time to try and stay locked in, especially for a guy of his size and with his past history of wildness.
Rays vs. Yankees (-167, 7)
8 p.m. ET
The Yankees face elimination at home here against the Rays, as Nick Martinez and Max Fried are the listed hurlers. Fried’s girlfriend is due to give birth, but he’s staying locked in with his job. I don’t know what that means for this start, whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. But, he was nails in the Wild Card Round against the Red Sox, throwing six innings of one-run ball.
For those who overvalue playoff sample size, Fried now has a 5.03 ERA in 82.1 playoff innings, so he had a pretty big track record of struggling, and yet pitched extremely well last time out. He’s also pretty fresh this time around in October, as he was limited to 112.2 innings during the regular season. More often than not, he’s a high-volume workhorse, but he spent some time on the IL this season.
The Rays are seeing their first left-handed starter here after getting Gerrit Cole and Cam Schlittler in the first two games of the series. This was not a great split for them, as they were 27th in wOBA during the regular season, slashing .248/.315/.364. As they have done in all splits, they put a lot of balls in play, but their contact authority against southpaws was not what it was against righties.
Then there’s Martinez, a changeup wizard with longstanding reverse platoon splits. Martinez is a righty better against lefties, which seems pretty significant given the composition of the New York lineup right now without Aaron Judge. Lefties only batted .236 against Martinez, about 30 points lower than what righties were able to accomplish. His wOBA against was 21 points lower against left-handed sticks as well. That’s what he’ll look to use to his advantage here. I don’t think there was another option for manager Kevin Cash other than going with Drew Rasmussen in Game 1 and Freddy Peralta in Game 2, but you have to think that the Rays coaches and analysts looked long and hard about Martinez pitching in the Bronx.
Considering that he allowed a 45.9% fly ball percentage to left-handed batters and New York has that short right field porch, I’m sure it was a big talking point about giving him the ball in Game 3. Lefties did have a higher Hard Hit% and a higher Barrel% than righties, but both numbers were well above average for Martinez. He’s also an extreme pitch-to-contact guy with a 15.1% K% this season. Of course, he also throws a ton of strikes, holding opponents to a 3.6% BB%.
Martinez doesn’t really fit the playoff profile, where guys increase their margin for error by throwing hard and leveraging their swing-and-miss offerings. Martinez is just hoping to induce a lot of weak contact and have his fielders make outs behind him.
I lean towards the Rays here in spite of that, but I don’t think I can get there with this price. If the Rays had hit lefties better and had a higher probability of getting to Fried to offset any runs that Martinez gives up, I’d be all about taking a shot. But, as things stand, I can’t make a pregame play.
Brewers vs. Padres (-113, 7.5)
10 p.m. ET
At time of writing, no starter had been named for the Brewers. Pat Murphy referred to Robert Gasser and Chad Patrick as “options” when asked by the media last night. I figure it’ll be some collection of Gasser, Patrick, Kyle Harrison, and Shane Drohan before the leverage guys are needed. Remember, the NL series did not have an off day between Games 1 and 2 like the NL did. As a result, Abner Uribe has worked all three games in the series over four days. The same is true for Yuki Matsui and Bradgley Rodriguez in the San Diego pen.
Walker Buehler will start Game 4 for San Diego. He just came off of the paternity list for Game 3, but wasn’t called into action, as Nick Pivetta and the bullpen was able to narrowly hold it down. Buehler was not warming up last night, but Robbie Ray and Joe Musgrove were, so we’ll see if one or both of those guys factor into the equation. Adrian Morejon was unavailable in G3 due to “stickiness” in his shoulder, which sounds a little bit ominous. That’s why Michael King pitched the last two innings and closed out the game.
Buehler has been a bulldog in the postseason. He’s pitched over 104 innings with a 3.04 ERA and a 3.21 FIP. Of course, he also hasn’t been a very good pitcher since 2021, so he’s not really that guy anymore. That’s not to say he can’t turn the lineup over a time or two, but the strikeout machine of postseasons past is not there anymore. He had a 4.63 ERA with a 4.51 FIP during the regular season. The 32-year-old was a lot better in the second half than the first half, but he did post a 4.43 ERA in September with a .451 SLG against.
I backed the Brew Crew yesterday and they had chances. They had more hits and more walks than the Padres, but couldn’t get any of the really big hits to swing the game. I like their pitching setup today as well. I don’t know how many of the multi-inning options will be called into action, but all of them have a variety of skills and could be even more effective going up a tick or two in velo.
The price isn’t as good as yesterday’s, which is to be expected, but I do feel as though the Brewers win this game more often than the line implies. They’re just the better offense and maybe even the better bullpen with Morejon hurt and Miller potentially out again on the paternity list.
Pick: Brewers -107
