While the majority of the sports world watched the 2023 NFL Draft, we stayed vigilant over baseball and, more importantly, the MLB Best Bets and Betting Picks remained focused on the task at hand. We were coming off a much-needed 3-0 Wednesday, so we wanted to follow up strong on Thursday which, we did. OK, fine. The Los Angeles Angels bullpen screwed us a little by allowing two runs in the eighth and killed our run line bet, but we hit both overs for the Mets/Nationals and the Braves/Marlins game. Did Mother Nature help us by causing a rain delay in Atlanta? Maybe, but we had some positive betting karma coming our way anyway.

  • Yesterday’s Record: 2-1
  • Season Record: 44-33-1
  • Bankroll: +5.36 units

We’ve got a 14-game slate to study with one game coming in the late afternoon so let’s see what looks good for the MLB Best Bets for today.

 

 

MLB Best Bets for April 28

Kansas City Royals at Minnesota Twins

We’re picking on the Kansas City Royals who have now lost four of their last five games, 11 of their last 13 and have to face righthander Pablo Lopez of the Minnesota Twins on Friday. While Lopez is coming off his worst start of the season, he still shines bright with a 3.00 ERA, a 1.03 WHIP and 39 strikeouts over 30 innings pitched. It also helps that the Royals average just over three runs per game and rank dead-last in the majors with a .255 wOBA against righties. To make matters worse, the Royals are throwing Jordan Lyles with his 4.88 ERA and seven home runs allowed at Minnesota. The Twins bats have been about average against righthanded pitching this season, so it’s a good thing they’re facing a well below-average pitcher. With no value on this money line and the Royals being 9-16 against the run line this season, we’ll bank on the Twins winning this one by at least two.

Pick: Minnesota Twins -1.5 Run Line (-120 on DK Sportsbook) 

Cleveland Guardians at Boston Red Sox

The Boston bats have been pretty lively at home this season, posting a .341 wOBA with a .170 ISO and will host righthander Shane Bieber and the Guardians bullpen that has been, at best, middle-of-the-road for the last two weeks. The key here is Bieber who has not only seen his strikeout rate diminish over the past few seasons, but his walks are way up this year and while he’s sporting a 3.32 ERA, his peripherals like his xERA and xFIP indicate that he’s not pitching that well and has gotten lucky to have given up so few runs in comparison to the WHIP spikes we’ve seen. With Boston’s ability to bet up righties, we should see some scoring from the home team. Well how about the visitors? Well, look no further than Nick Pivetta on the bump for Boston. He opened the season well, but has struggled over his last two outings and is someone we like to target against as the season progresses. The Guardians have had their recent struggles, offensively, but you have to love the fact that the over is 10-4-2 in the last 16 meetings for these teams at Fenway Park.

Pick: Guardians/Red Sox over 8.5 runs (-120 on BetMGM)

New York Yankees at Texas Rangers

A little piece of me is about to die inside as I start to write up this game. Not only have I been scalded, not burned but scalded, by the Texas Rangers bullpen recently, but as a Yankees fan, it hurts me to even think about betting against them. But with Jacob deGrom on the mound for Texas, I feel like I have to. The Yankees are likely to be without Aaron Judge and, with the exception of Anthony Rizzo, no one else in this lineup has a batting average over .280 or has any legitimate experience against deGrom. In fact, the Yankees have just a .313 wOBA against righties this season and are striking out more than 25-percent of the time against them. Pitching for the Yankees is Clarke Schmidt who is coming off a solid outing against the Toronto Blue Jays, but is still rocking a 6.55 ERA with a 1.55 WHIP. The Rangers have been very strong against righthanded pitching this season and have the fifth-highest wOBA at home. So long as the Rangers bullpen doesn’t crumble again like day-old coffee cake, this looks like a good spot for us to make a few extra shekels.

Pick: Texas Rangers -1.5 Run Line (+100 on DK Sportsbook)

**all bets are one unit unless specifically mentioned