Today’s Best Baseball Bets unfold at Target Field in Minnesota as Cleveland Guardians tussel with the hometown Twins.
The Pitching Matchup
Aaron Civale takes the bump for the visiting Guardians today. Civale sustained a glute injury in late May and has since been on the injured list, but has performed sufficiently enough in his rehab starts. In his last outing, he pitching in the neighborhood of 75 pitches, thus giving the impression he won’t be on a short leash when he makes his 8th start of the season and first since May 20th. In those previous 7 starts, the Civale and the Guardians have allowed 7.3 runs per game on average.
Minnesota will roll out RHP Joe Ryan, who makes his 10th start of the 2022 campaign. Generally a solid starter who averages around 5.1 IP, Ryan gave up 4 runs on his own in under 5 innings against a home Seattle squad. If you believe in patterns, Ryan will have one moderately rough outing per month, in the neighborhood of 4 ER, but the team averages only 2.3 allowed runs on average in Joe Ryan started contests.
Odds and Ends
The home Twins start as a somewhat heavy, and understandable, favorite at -170 on DraftKings Sportsbook. This implies that the oddsmakers are giving Minnesota a 63% probability of victory, meaning a $20 bet yields you an $11.76 profit.
The SlasherSports models agree with the oddsmakers, but give predict a slightly higher probability of 66% for the Twins. This is enough to take the Twins moneyline wager a SlasherSports Baseball Best Bet.
Over Under
The starting line on this contest sits at 9 runs. In 2022, on the road, Cleveland has averaged 4.5 runs per game with a mere 3.8 runs averaged in their last 6 games. Granted, some of those contests have included some solid opposing pitching, but Joe Ryan fits that bill.
At home, Minnesota has averaged 4.3 runs per game with 3.6 over their last 6 games. However, the Twins have been on the road and will enjoy the comforts of home in this contest. Prior to the road trip, the Twins did average 5.6 runs per game at home against the Yankees and Rays respectively.
With an O/U of 9 to start, Vegas is giving a probability of 53% to go over and 51% to stay under. Yes, I’m aware that’s over 100%, but I didn’t write the rules of probability. The SlasherSports models differ slightly in this prognostication and show a 53% probability that this game stays under 9 runs, given the Guardians lack of production on the road as of late, and SP Ryan’s ability to limit damage. If the line shift upward to 10, this puts the Under probability at 63%, per our models.
Our baseball best bet says wait until the line change to at least 9.5, but 10 is optimal. We don’t see this one escalating any higher than 9.5, however. Capping is a funny business, though. Considering Civale’s stint on the IL, bettors could be convinced that Minnesota will return to their old ones and shift the line to 10 or over. In that case, LOCK IT IN.
Spread Em’
Given the Twins home production and Guardians lack of road production as of late, not over the course of the season, the spread is where I feel we can find our value. DraftKings Sportsbook has +110 odds as of the time of this writeup on the Twins covering the -1.5 spread, which is a 48% implied probability. However, our data models favor the Twins to cover, with a probability of 58%.
Best Baseball Bet
Twins Moneyline, Twins -1.5
About the Author
Billy Graves is the host of the Hit City Podcast, laying down his daily best bets. You can also find him on the Slashers & Screamers podcast, reviewing your favorite horror films from years past and present, and on the Monday morning show Wake Up! with Wowie & The Kid. Find out more at SlasherSports.com
