Ricky Dimon
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The Major League Baseball week wraps up with a full 15-game slate on Sunday. It will put a bow on the proverbial first half of the season, as the All-Star break begins on Monday. Today’s schedule gets started with the usual Peacock game, with the latest installment of it featuring Texas and Washington at 12:05 pm ET. Also headlining the action are Atlanta at Tampa Bay, Cubs at Yankees and Philadelphia at Miami.
The YRFI/NRFI market has become extremely popular in baseball betting. After all, you don’t have to sit around for 3 hours (or maybe a lot less now that games are not as long on average!) to see if your wager hits; the satisfaction (or in some cases disappointment) is immediate. It all comes down to the first inning.
Here are my best YRFI/NRFI bets for Sunday, and also be sure to check out all of our MLB predictions.
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Toronto Blue Jays vs Detroit Tigers: NRFI (-120)
The Tigers are 25th in Major League Baseball in runs scored during the first inning (0.44 per game) and now they have to face a pitcher in Chris Bassitt who is rounding into form. Bassitt has not been at his absolute best throughout the season, but he is coming off 2 consecutive quality starts. The Blue Jays’ right-hander struck out 12 Giants while pitching 6.0 innings of shutout baseball and then limited the White Sox to 3 runs in 6.0 innings to go along with 5 Ks and only 1 BB. Dating back to the start of June, Bassitt has allowed a first-inning run just once.
Detroit is countering with lefty Tarik Skubal. He just made his 2023 debut on July 4 and worked 4.0 innings of perfect ball against the A’s. That’s right; not a single Oakland player reached base and Skubal struck out 5 in the process. He now runs into a Toronto team that got shut out on Saturday and is a mediocre 15th in the league in runs scored in the opening frame (0.49 per contest). Give me the NRFI.
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Colorado Rockies vs San Francisco Giants: YRFI (-115)
More runs (3) were scored in the first inning of Saturday’s Rockies-Giants game than in the entire Blue Jays-Tigers matchup (2). Both Colorado and San Francisco crossed the plate at least once in the opening frame yesterday and I expect 1 (or both) to do the same this afternoon. The Rockies will be up first and they are facing Logan Webb of the Giants. Ryan McMahon is 9-for-28 (.321) against Webb with a homer and 2 doubles, while C.J. Cron is 5-for-16 (.313) with a double. Consider these factors, as well: Webb surrendered 3 first-inning runs in his last start of June and the Rockies actually average more first-inning runs on the road (0.58) than at home (0.39).
Webb will be opposed by Kyle Freeland, whom the Giants love to see. Over the previous 4 seasons his ERA against them has been 4.50, 5.52, 6.97 and 4.91. Austin Slate has a home run and 2 doubles in the matchup, both Wilmer Flores and Mike Yastrzemski (6-for-12) have a homer and a double and Joc Pederson is 3-for-4 with a double. Freeland is 4-9 with a 4.93 ERA this year and his ERA is actually worse on the road than at home (5.89 to 4.13). I like the YRFI to cash for the third time in 3 games of this series.
You can also read today’s MLB mega parlay!
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