Opening Day was everything we could have asked for and more. Pitchers were dealing, Aaron Judge hit a home run and my best bets column went 2-1! It was looking like a sweep was in the cards with the only bet left being Shohei Ohtani and the Angels beating the Athletics, but of course, Los Angeles failed to provide any sort of run support. Moving on from that embarrassing loss, there is a smaller slate of games today, but I’ve still found a best bet. Let’s check it out, but be sure to also visit our MLB predictions for all Friday’s games.
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Los Angeles Dodgers first-5 -0.5 (-130) over Arizona Diamondbacks
Available at DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publishing
Dodger Stadium is an intimidating park to pitch in, and nobody is more scared of the illustrious park than Merrill Kelly. The Diamondbacks starter’s ERA in Dodger Stadium is the highest of any park he has pitched in for at least 2 starts. In 6 starts in L.A, Kelly is 0-4 with a 6.97 ERA and a 1.48 WHIP in 31 innings. Kelly faced the Dodgers a lot last season since these teams are divisional foes, and it was clear that the setting affected him when he pitched against L.A. Kelly made 3 starts against the Dodgers at home in 2022 and allowed 9 runs on 17 hits in 16 innings, but when he started against the Dodgers in L.A he was shelled for 13 runs on 13 hits with 6 walks in 8 innings. Granted, the Los Angeles offense was excellent last season, but the stark difference in his outings at Chase Field compared to Dodger Stadium is too great to overlook.
Starting for the Dodgers will be Big Red, also known as Dustin May. The 25-year-old returned late in the 2022 season after missing 15 months recovering from Tommy John surgery. It was a successful end to the 2022 season for May, and he continued his success into Spring Training as May finished with a 2.95 ERA in 5 appearances. From watching his Spring Training starts, two things were clear. One, May hasn’t lost his velocity. Big Red touched triple digits and sat above 97 mph on his fastball, which was encouraging to see. And two, control can still be a slight issue for him, as he had 7 walks in 18.1 innings. In May’s limited action in 2022, he had an 11% walk rate, so that is still an element of his game that he is looking to improve on. However, I trust May far more than Kelly in this situation. Los Angeles scored 5 runs in the first 5 innings last night against the Arizona ace Zac Gallen, so I think they can repeat that performance against the less-than-stellar Kelly.
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