Caleb Wilfinger
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The 2023 MLB postseason is finally here, and the Wild Card round is starting us off with a quartet of games on Tuesday for us baseball bettors to enjoy. The American League is truly wide open for the first time in years, and both of these teams have a real shot to emerge from the chaos and represent the AL in the World Series. But before we can even think about the Fall Classic, we’ll need to get through the first game of this Wild Card round. The Blue Jays will likely be the trendy pick in this matchup, but I’m more inclined to back the home favorite in this contest.
Here is my Blue Jays vs Twins Same Game Parlay for tonight’s matchup, which will be televised starting at 4:38 pm ET on ESPN. Also, be sure to check out our full MLB predictions for all of the exciting postseason action.
Twins ML (-120)
Under 7.5 (-110)
Ryan Jeffers to record a hit (-145)
Same Game Parlay odds: +491
One of the benefits of Same Game Parlays, of course, is that you can correlate the plays. That is my thought process with this parlay here, as a Twins win and cover can correlate with the under, and it certainly correlates with Ryan Jeffers getting into the action with a hit. Let’s get into it.
Minnesota Twins ML over Toronto Blue Jays (-120)
The Twins are the only way I can look in this matchup for a myriad of reasons. For starters, Minnesota’s lineup is undervalued in the betting market compared to Toronto, Texas, Baltimore and even Houston. The Twins are 7th in the league in SLG, 7th in OPS, 3rd in home runs and 10th in runs scored on the season. This ranks better than Toronto in every category, despite the Blue Jays having the much more high-profile offense on paper. This is a Twins lineup that already tagged Toronto starter Kevin Gausman for 6 runs earlier this season and won’t need to push across many runs to support Pablo Lopez (2.98 xERA, 94th percentile xwOBA, 95% chase rate). The Twins are generally undervalued in this game and in the series, so let’s take Minnesota on the money line.
Be sure to check out our full Toronto Blue Jays vs Minnesota Twins prediction
Under 7.5 (-110)
Even though Minnesota did fare well against Gausman in his most recent outing against the Twins, this is still a matchup between a pair of very strong pitchers. After all, Gausman still posted a 3.16 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP in 31 starts this season. Most impressively, he posted a 2.43 ERA and limited hitters to a .189 batting average in his 5 September outings. Meanwhile, Lopez has been excellent all season long, ranking in the 64th percentile or better in every single pitching category per Baseball Savant. These offenses are strong, particularly Minnesota’s, but I do think the pressure of a Game 1 dulls the bats a bit for both teams. Once the nerves wear off, I expect the winning runs to be scored in the middle innings before the Twins bullpen finishes the job. I’m predicting something like a 4-2 Twins victory in Game 1, so let’s add the under to this SGP.
Our expert has their YRFI/NRFI best bets for today, after finishing the MLB season on a 33-19 run!
Ryan Jeffers to record a hit (-145)
Ryan Jeffers is someone I’ve been interested in backing for a few weeks now and his form to end the season gives me no reason not to believe in him on Tuesday. The Twins catcher has been very impressive in recent weeks, racking up a total of 12 hits over his last 9 games played, including 5 hits over his last 9 plate appearances to close the season. Jeffers has hit safely in 7 of his last 9 games as well, so I think we’re getting a bit of a discount on a player whose swinging a hot bat. Given that most casual fans of the sport likely wouldn’t recognize Jeffers’ name, I’ll gladly take advantage of this bit of value in the final leg of our parlay.
Celebrate the start of the playoffs with our MLB mega parlay at +963 odds today
