MLB Best Bets: Thursday, June 16

One of Major League Baseball’s premier franchises is having a great June, while another is in major peril.

The Boston Red Sox are beating up on the American League West, winning 10 of their last 12 games, which have come against Seattle, the Los Angeles Angels, and Oakland. The Sox are now 5-0 against the A’s over the last week and a half and look to finish off the perfect mark this afternoon.

On the north side of Chicago, times aren’t nearly as great. After a run of major success in the latter half of the 2010s, the Cubs appear to be back to their “lovable loser” status, as they have dropped nine-straight games and are close to the cellar in the National League Central. 

Looking at the matchups, we don’t see the fortunes for either team changing today. These two clubs are part of our MLB best bets for this Thursday in Major League Baseball.

Oakland Athletics vs. Boston Red Sox

The Bet: Boston -155 (DraftKings Sportsbook)

The Red Sox are not only 5-0 against Oakland this year, but they have won each meeting by at least three runs. The first two games of this series have a combined score of 16-2. We considered backing Boston on the run line at -1.5, but -155 for the win provides good value given the pitching matchup.

Paul Blackburn (5-2, 2.31 ERA) was touched up by the Sox last week in Oakland for four runs in four innings pitched, but he rebounded with an eight-inning shutout effort in Cleveland on Friday. It was just the latest in a string of spectacular road outings for Blackburn, who has posted a 4-0 record with a 0.91 ERA away from home. The problem for the offensively challenged A’s is that even with Blackburn putting up zeroes over eight innings last week is that Oakland still lost to the Guardians 3-2. 

Boston counters with Rich Hill, the ageless one at 42, who is 2-3 with a 4.38 ERA on the year but is coming off two decent outings. After getting lit up by the Orioles for six runs in four innings on May 30, he countered with six innings of one-run ball in Oakland and then kept the Mariners to two runs in five innings while striking out a season-high six.

Normally, these numbers might have us favor an upset pick of Oakland here, but given how Boston has dominated the team over the past week and a half, we’ll give up some odds and go with the Sox to win.

San Diego Padres vs. Chicago Cubs

The Bet: San Diego -1.5, -115 (FanDuel Sportsbook)

In this case, we’ll jump on the run line with the Padres sending its ace to the mound against the hapless Cubs. San Diego was the underdog yesterday and responded by winning 19-5. Today, they are a heavy favorite with Cy Young candidate Joe Musgrove pitching. 

Musgrove is 7-0 with a 1.50 ERA with 72 strikeouts in 72 innings pitched. He hasn’t allowed a run in his last two starts, spanning 14 innings. The wind will be blowing out today at Wrigley Field, but Musgrove’s high strikeout rate and his fly-ball percentage of just 19.6% are two things that will be working in his favor.

The Cubs send Matt Swarmer to the mound to counter Musgrove. After two decent starts to start off his career, he was hammered for six runs in five innings against the Yankees on Saturday. A concerning note on Swarmer with the wind blowing out today is that he gave up an MLB record-tying six solo home runs in New York last week. You may want to load up your daily fantasy sports lineup with Padres today.

Chicago has lost nine straight games and has allowed at least eight runs in four of their last five. The Padres have scored 31 runs in their last two games at Wrigley and show no signs of slowing down on the road, where they are an MLB-best 23-11 and have won six in a row away from Petco Park. Getting nearly even money on the run line here feels like a gift.

Texas Rangers vs. Detroit Tigers

The Bet: Texas -150 (Caesar’s Sportsbook)

The Rangers open up a four-game series with the offensively challenged Tigers in Detroit. And they have a favorable pitching matchup tonight (though every matchup is favorable against Detroit if Tarik Skubal isn’t on the mound).

Texas sends Martin Perez to the mound, who still carries a 2.18 ERA and a 1.10 WHIP despite being hammered for six earned runs in five innings in his last start in Chicago, but the Rangers still won that game 11-9 in 10 innings. There’s reason to believe that was a blip on the radar, however, as Perez allowed six runs in his previous nine starts before the White Sox debacle. 

The Tigers counter with pitcher Beau Brieske, who is 1-5 with a 4.34 ERA. He did have an impressive outing against Toronto last Saturday, throwing 5.2 innings of shutout ball in what was the Tigers’ last victory before losing their last four. Brieske doesn’t strike out a lot of batters, however, as the Blue Jays racked up seven hits and put 22 balls in play against him, so keeping Toronto off the board may have been more a matter of good fortune than anything else. 

There’s no team for Perez to get better against than the Tigers, who are not only last in MLB in runs scored with 168, but they are last by a wide margin–the next-lowest-scoring team is Oakland with 208. The Rangers have dropped four of their last 10, but they are sneakily decent at 15-15 on the road and 29-33 on the year, so Texas should win this one handily.