If you plan on placing an MLB wager during your work week, see below for some games and matchups to keep your eye on, as well as some trends that have been lucrative so far this season.
All betting lines are courtesy of Sports Interaction, and current as time of publication.
Minnesota Twins @ Seattle Mariners
For tonight’s series opener at T-Mobile Park, the pitching matchup is Minnesota’s Kenta Maeda (2-2, 5.27 ERA, 1.48 WHIP) versus Seattle’s Marco Gonzales (1-4, 5.45 ERA, 1.29 WHIP).
The Twins have been a bank machine all season if you’ve bet them blindly to go over the total. Heading into tonight’s game, the over has hit 66.1% (41-21-3) of the time in games involving the Twinkies, which is No. 1 in all of baseball.
Minny is also the best team in baseball on the road when taking the over. The Twins are 20-8-2 (71.4%) away from Target Field this season. Seattle, meanwhile, is a respectable 51.6% (33-31-3) on the over this season in their own right.
The total for tonight’s game is 8.0, so I think there is value in taking the over at -112. In fact, take a good hard look at the over for the series as a whole.
Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Francisco Giants
Alex Wood (5-3, 3.79 ERA, 1.16 WHIP) will take the mound for San Francisco tonight and face off against Matt Peacock (2-3, 5.24 ERA, 1.31 WHIP) of the Diamondbacks.
Much like the Twins when it comes to betting the over, the Giants have been a juggernaut against the run line this season. San Francisco’s record against the spread this season is 42-23-0 (64.6%) heading into tonight’s game, which is the best mark in all Major League baseball. The Giants are also very good at home against the run line this season by going 16-11-0 (59.3%), which ranks No. 2 in baseball. Arizona, meanwhile, is 15-21-0 (41.7%) against the run line this season as the road team.
The Giants should be favoured in every game of this series against the National League’s worst team, and are well worth your consideration.
Pittsburgh Pirates @ Washington Nationals
Jon Lester (0-2, 4.19 ERA, 1.50 WHIP) will start for Washington in Monday night’s series opener while JT Brubaker (4-5, 3.90 ERA, 1.18 WHIP) gets the call for the Bucs.
If you like betting the total to go under, you’ll love this series. The under is 41-18-3 (69.5%) in games involving Washington, which makes them the most profitable team in baseball when placing that bet. The under is also a spectacular 24-8-0 (75%) in games played at Nationals Park this season heading into tonight’s game. The Pirates are 32-29-3 (52.5%) to the under this season.
Tonight’s total is set at 8.5, with the under coming in at +101. I would lean that way tonight and for the rest of the series.
Tampa Bay Rays @ Chicago White Sox
The Rays and White Sox kick off a three-game series at Guaranteed Rate Field on Monday. Chicago’s Dallas Keuchel (5-1, 4.41 ERA, 1.30 WHIP) is scheduled to start in the middle game on Tuesday night. Keuchel has benefited from some solid White Sox offence in his 13 starts this season and is getting 6.31 runs of support per start.
The White Sox have done even better supporting Keuchel at home (6.5 runs per game). Thanks in part to that, the over is also 4-2 in those games. When the total is posted for Tuesday’s game, I would look at going over it.
