Ricky Dimon
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The weekend in Major League Baseball wraps up with a full 15-game slate on Sunday. A busy afternoon lineup consists of Cardinals at Yankees, Royals at Astros and Dodgers at Diamondbacks. After that it’s a National League East showdown between the Braves and Phillies for the ESPN Game of the Week.
Below is my mega parlay, and also be sure to check out all of our MLB picks.
Yankees -1.5 (-115)
Red Sox -1.5 (+136)
Braves ML (+120)
MLB parlay odds: +871
For this parlay I am going with 2 favorites on the run line and 1 underdog on the money line. Let’s break down each of the 3 legs.
New York Yankees -1.5 over St. Louis Cardinals (-115)
The Yankees were 14-12 in August and with only 26 games left, each one will matter as they continue to battle for the AL East crown against the Orioles. New York should have the advantage on the mound, and with its lineup. Nestor Cortes is set to start and he is 8-10 this season with a 3.89 ERA. Cortes has had his ups and downs this year, but in his last 3 starts he has compiled a 3-0 record to go along with a 0.44 ERA. He will be looking to keep things rolling as he faces a Cardinals team that is 25th in the league batting .258 this season against lefties. St. Louis is countering with Miles Mikolas, who is 8-10 with a 5.23 ERA. In Mikolas’ last 3 appearances he is 0-1 with a 4.67 ERA. The Yankees undoubtedly have the better bats in today’s matchup and Cortes has been pitching significantly better than Mikolas. Give me the Bronx Bombers to win big.
Boston Red Sox -1.5 over Detroit Tigers (+136)
Boston will use Cooper Criswell as a bullpen opener for this matchup, a role he has become accustomed to with the Red Sox. Criswell should be expected to toss 3 or 4 innings given his recent workload, and the right-hander has already pitched well against this Detroit team earlier in 2024. He fired 5.0 innings of 1-run ball in their first matchup and Boston will hope he can replicate that effort today. Detroit has had a youth movement with several call-ups of top prospects in recent weeks, but the team has remained competitive by winning 14 of its last 19 games. Still, the Tigers are too far out of playoff contention given the number of teams ahead of them. Ty Madden will make his second career MLB start and draws a far tougher matchup than his first one against the White Sox. The Red Sox have been on fire offensively, so look for them to prevail by multiple runs.
Atlanta Braves ML over Philadelphia Phillies (+120)
A split of this 4-game series won’t be enough for the Braves to make any headway in the National League East, but it’s all they can settle for now and it would at least help them out in the wild-card battle. The visitors should be able to get it with Spencer Schwellenbach on the mound. Schwelly compiled a 3.07 ERA in 5 August starts and that was after he wrapped up July with an 11-strikeout performance while pitching 7.0 innings of shutout baseball against the New York Mets. The right-hander is on an absolute roll right now. As for the Phillies, even though they have won 2 of 3 so far in this rivalry series they have still been horrendous since the all-star break. Atlanta has good value as an underdog.
