We’re officially into another week of baseball, but this Monday is unique. Usually, we are left with just a handful of games on Monday, but today we have a 12-game slate which is bigger and better than normal. The action starts in our nation’s capital at 4:05 pm ET and concludes with a Twins-Dodgers first pitch at 10:10 pm ET.
Before we get into the games, let me introduce myself. For those that don’t know me, my name is Keith, and I finished up +62.6 units in the regular season last year with my Pickswise picks. And now, let’s get into my MLB best bet for Monday, and be sure to also visit our MLB predictions for all of today’s games.
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Arizona Diamondbacks -1.5 over Oakland Athletics (-125)
Available at DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publishing
There are bad teams, and then there are the Athletics. We are in the middle of May, and Oakland is the only team in baseball that has less than 10 wins. At 9-33, the A’s have become the laughingstock of the league and have fans chanting for the owner to sell the team at each home game. I’ve yet to take advantage of how bad the Athletics have been this season, but that ends tonight. With Drew Rucinski taking the mound for the A’s, I’m all over Merrill Kelly and the Diamondbacks.
There are 3 main reasons I’m taking the visitors tonight, and the first one is simple – Rucinski is terrible. The 34-year-old has appeared in 3 games this season and has allowed 17 runs, 23 hits and 9 walks in just 14.1 innings. The crazy part of Rucinski’s story is that he was not playing baseball in this country from 2019-2022. He was in the KBO for 4 seasons after failing to earn a job in the MLB, so before this season, his last MLB outing was in 2018 as a member of the Marlins bullpen. But back to this season, Rucinski ranks in the bottom 10% of pitchers in strikeout rate, fastball velocity, xBA and xERA.
The second reason for fading the Athletics tonight is their miserable offense. Besides scoring 3 runs or less in 6 of their last 8 games, the A’s just can’t seem to hit at home. Their offense ranks 30th in batting average, on-base percentage and OPS at home which results in averaging just 3.09 runs. It will only get tougher on Monday night against Merrill Kelly since the veteran has a 3.18 ERA this season, but it drops to 1.15 on the road. His 3 road starts were no walk in the park either since he had to face the Dodgers, Cardinals and Rockies, and Colorado was more difficult due to the extreme hitter-friendly conditions. Overall, Kelly is having his best season yet. His strikeout and ground-ball rate are at career highs and have been crucial to his success this season.
The third and final reason for fading the A’s today is because of their opponent. The Diamondbacks have been hot at the plate recently as they rank 4th in batting average, 1st in on-base percentage and 4th in OPS in the last week. However, the biggest advantage they have is facing a right-handed pitcher. Arizona has been decent against lefties this season, but they’ve been elite against righties. They rank 4th in OPS and 7th in wRC+ against right-handers which means they should feast on Rucinski. But the slugging should continue in the second half of the game too, considering Oakland’s bullpen ranks 30th in ERA, FIP, xFIP and WAR in the last 14 days. Fading Oakland on the run line is 7-1 in the last 8 games, so I’m backing the trends and taking the D-Backs for a 2-unit play.
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