Dave Gloeckner 
It’s a Sunday Funday here at Win Daily Sports. We look to close out a strong week of MLB on this sunny day across the nation. Football is in full swing and ramping up to it’s opening day. But there’s still so much baseball to be played with just about 40 games left per team. And there are only 9 teams that are more than 10 games back from a playoff spot meaning 2/3 of the league still has meaningful baseball to play. So let’s get at it today and see if we can find the right mix of arms and bats to bring home a big win.
Both Jared and I will be posting articles during the week and have a central focus on both MLB betting and DFS. Today is my turn and I will provide you a centralized focus on betting, props and DFS plays.
GAME BETS & PLAYER PROPS
SEATTLE MARINERS -160 at PITTSBURGH PIRATES
I hate betting on the Mariners. Their offense is so bad that you can never feel safe even when their pitchers are throwing a gem. And this has been the case in most of George Kirby’s recent starts. The Mariners have lost seven of the last eight games that their ace has started. In those seven losses, they’ve scored a total of 12 runs. But streaks are meant to be broken and I’m backing the Mariners to put up some runs today against Pittsburgh and SP Jake Woodford. For one, if you think Kirby’s recent streak is bad check out Woodford. The Pirates are 0-4 in games he’s pitched and his teams are 0-6 overall in games he’s played. He has a 5.47 ERA but most importantly he pitches to contact as 13.7% K rate is 2nd lowest on the slate today. The reason that’s important is because Seattle leads the league in K rate. If they can effectively put the ball in play, it provides greater opportunity for their offense to generate runs.
But this bet is mostly about Kirby against a subpar offense in Pittsburgh. I will be backing him in DFS and the prop market today as he looks to rebound from the worst start of his career.
BALTIMORE ORIOLES -125 vs BOSTON RED SOX
The Red Sox have taken the last two games in their four-game series with Baltimore and will look for a series win today in the Charm City. But the number one reason I’m betting against that is their SP Kutter Crawford. Like many who started the season on fire, Kutter has hit the mid/late season wall. The Red Sox pitcher has a 9.75 ERA in his last 5 starts. And he’s allowed an eye-opening 13 home runs in that stretch, including three games where he allowed 3+ homers. He is tied for the MLB lead with Jose Berrios with 27 dingers allowed on the season. Which is bad news as he faces the team today that has the most team HR’s in the league; the Baltimore Orioles.
Crawford has seen Baltimore twice this year and the Sox have lost both games. He’s pitched decently, registering a 4.10 ERA, against the O’s but that was when he was in much better form. I’ll take the orange birds today to follow suit from other teams that have faced Kutter Crawford and send a few over the fence and build a big enough lead to let the bullpen close out a solid victory.
DOG OF THE DAY: TBD
PLAYER PROPS
GEORGE KIRBY over 5.5 K’s (-130 BET365)
JOE MUSGROVE over 4.5 K’s (-140 BET365)
The Rockies have the 2nd highest K rate in August at 29%. And they are 2nd overall on the season at 26.1%. While this is only Musgrove’s 2nd start since missing 2.5 months on the IL, I expect him to get a longer leash (~80-85 pitches) which should be plenty of time to get him through 5 and possibly 6 innings. The Padres SP has a good career K rate of 23.6%. But that grows to 28% against this core of Rockies hitters.
TBD
PLUS PROP OF THE DAY – GUNNAR HENDERSON over 0.5 HRs (+450) and JACKSON HOLLIDAY over 0.5 HRs (+650 BET365)
We have to get action on the O’s lineup today against a beleaguered pitcher in Kutter Crawford. Both Henderson and Holliday have 4 homers in the month of August. And Crawford has given up bombs to power LH bats of late like Corey Seager (2x), Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Juan Soto.
DFS – 1:35PM SLATE
We’re looking at the 1:35pm slate today as that has the largest pool of games with 10.
Top Pitchers to Target:
SHOTO IMANAGA ($9400 DK):
Imanaga has been as consistent as it comes in his rookie season with the Cubs. His ERA at home and away is separated by just 0.3 runs. And his night/day ERA is separated by 0.19 runs. While he’s been touched up a few times of late, he’s still 9-2 with a 3.16 ERA and 25.1% K rate. Obviously, his early start was going to be tough to maintain. But he’s still finding success during the long season by pitching five quality starts in his last eight appearances.
Today he gets the Blue Jays and that’s one of the keys to putting Imanaga in my player pool. The Jays are not good against LHP’s. On the season they rank 25th in OPS, 27th in batting average, and 25in wOBA against southpaws. And those numbers are also very similar in the past 2.5 weeks as they are batting just 0.211 against lefties in the month of August. The wind also looks friendly for pitchers today at Wrigley as it’ll be blowing in from center for most of the game. Considering Imanaga has a top 5 FB% rate on the slate, the wind is always a factor when he pitches and today it’s a bonus.
FRAMBER VALDEZ ($8900 DK):
This will be a popular destination for DFS players today and one you’ll have to consider. My advice would be to play on the lighter side. Meaning if we’re seeing 35-40% ownership, let’s stay in the 15-20% range. But the math is simple, it’s one of the hottest pitchers in baseball versus the worst team. So, we’ll have to play some of it. The Astros have won Valdez’s last 9 starts. And he comes into today’s outing with a 1.88 ERA in August. Since June 1st, He’s been good for 2+ months now as Valdez has a 2.81 ERA since June 1st.
GEORGE KIRBY ($8800 DK):
Kirby had one of his worst outings when he last took the mound. In that start, he allowed 11 runs over 3.2 innings against the Tigers. It’s almost like the pressure of pitching against Tarik Skubal just overwhelmed him. But luckily for Kirby, he gets to toe the mound again today against a team that is spiraling downwards in the Pittsburgh Pirates. Before Seattle came to town, Pittsburgh has lost 10 straight games. Unfortunately for the Mariners, their own woefulness has allowed Pittsburgh to snap out of it’s streak. But that doesn’t erase the season long batting issues. The Pirates are 24th in batting average and have the 5th highest K rate. And even recently, that K rate has spiked to 29.5% in August.
We also have to just erase the one outlier with Kirby. Before his last start, he had 13 straight starts of 3 ER’s or less. I think he bounces back in a big way today in Pittsburgh.
OTHER SP’S IN MY PLAYER POOL: MERRILL KELLY ($9000 DK), CLAYTON KERSHAW ($8200 DK)
Value Pitchers to Target:
TYLER MAHLE ($7300 DK)
Tyler Mahle had a long road back to the bigs. And in his first two starts since April 2023, he’s looked good flashing a fastball that can touch low to mid 90’s. Today he gets to face his former team in the Minnesota Twins. It will be bittersweet as he was only able to make 9 appearances for Minnesota in two seasons due to injuries. But I like his chances today as I got to see him pitch the other night against Boston and his stuff looked like what he had back in his late Cincy days. He’s operating with a heavy dose of fastball and splitter to keep hitters off-balance. And he’s posting a 33.3% whiff rate on the fastball and 26% whiff rate on the split. I’ll take a shot on a pitcher who sort of an unknown, but has career success (22.3% K rate of career) and is motivated to pitch well against a former team he wished he could have had more time with.
HONORABLE MENTION: TAIJUAN WALKER ($7000 DK), BOWDEN FRANCIS ($6300 DK)
Top Stacks to Target:
ASTROS:
ORIOLES:
As mentioned above, Kutter Crawford has struggled mightily over the past month with an ERA close to 10.0. One bat in particular that has been hot of late is Eloy Jimenez who is batting 0.424 in his past 12 games. I also like Jackson Holliday (0.291 BA & 4 HR’s), Gunnar Henderson (0.311 BA & 4 HR’s), and Ryan O’Hearn (0.333 BA) who all have solid numbers this month. A value bat to consider is Ramon Urias who has four hits and 5 RBI’s in the current series with Boston.
Other Stacks to Consider: BREWERS, PHILLIES
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