MLB Best Bets for Friday, August 27, 2021
I tweeted this last night, but I feel like I need to say this here too. I hate the Pittsburgh Pirates. This week would’ve been monstrous if I didn’t have three bets go down on them. Oh well, yesterday if you played literally everything, you were still up one unit. On the overall plays, we went 1-1-1 for a loss of .06 units. Onto Friday…
Cubs vs. White Sox
I’ve already shared this little tidbit with you… the Cubs are not a good team. They are second worse in the league for strikeouts and over the past three games are averaging 10 strikeouts per game. Dallas Keuchel for the White Sox is not a strikeout pitcher. But, when you combine a non-strikeout pitcher with a team that strikeout a lot you see opportunity because if the book puts his total too high, the under is hammered. If they put it too low, the over is hammered. In my opinion, they put the total on Keuchel’s strikeouts too low. He has a total of 4.5 strikeouts. In 68 at-bats against him, the Cubs hitters have struck out 15 times. That comes out to one out of every four or five batters. Keuchel is facing between 20 and 30 batters a game. At that rate you’re looking at him getting somewhere between four and six strikeouts. If he ends on four, I’ll live it with it as a loss. But, I think he gets five or more at +128.
Royals vs. Mariners
Seattle had a nice stretch for a while and is now 6.5 games back in the division, I don’t see them getting close enough to the wild card either. Especially with their starting pitching. Tonight, Logan Gilbert goes for the M’s and he has a 5.16 ERA. Just five starts ago, his ERA was in the 3’s, so you can tell what kind of stretch he is on. On the other side, for the Royals Kris Bubic has had one bad start in his past six. There was another where he didn’t go far into the game, but he was still pitching well during it. Neither team has much experience against the other pitcher but I don’t think that will matter much in this game. I am playing the total on the game over 8 runs at -105.
Giants vs. Braves
This is a potential playoff matchup and has two pitchers that are both likely to be strong factors if these teams make runs in the postseason. Kevin Gausman has been a great surprise and even Cy Young candidate for the Giants this season. He is one of the most profitable first five-inning pitchers in all of baseball. Tonight, he faces Max Fried who had a rough start to the year but seems to have rebounded into the form he was in last season. Fried has put together six of his last seven starts as quality starts and held Giant hitters to a .161 average. I like both starters in this game to keep the scoring low and hitters off-balance. I like the under 4.5 for the first five innings at -122 and like it for the game of 8.5 at -110.