Javan Shouey
The first weekend of MLB action is complete, but there is plenty of baseball to be played across the remainder of the season. Today presents an interesting slate of games when it comes to betting on scoring in the first inning. Let’s dive into my best YRFI/NRFI bets across Monday’s slate of games.
Pittsburgh Pirates vs Tampa Bay Rays: NRFI (-120)
Odds available at DraftKings at time of publishing. Playable at that price.
We targeted the Pirates game for the sake of this article on Friday with Mitch Keller and Connor Gillespie able to limit scoring in the opening frame of that matchup. Pittsburgh figures to have a below-average offense this season and that was true in the first weekend of play, as it lost 3 of 4 games to the Miami Marlins — scoring just 14 combined runs. When Adam Frazier and Tommy Pham are batting in the top third of an MLB lineup in the year 2025, my instincts are to bet against that team. Today they face right-hander Drew Rasmussen, who tossed 4.2 innings of scoreless in his final spring training tuneup. Rasmussen has struggled to stay healthy for an entire season since 2022 but has quality stuff and should be able to tame the Buccos early on.
Carmen Mlodzinski will start the game for Pittsburgh, making his first appearance of 2025. The right-handed hurler made 40 appearances last season with 4 of them in an opening role. An injury to Jared Jones left an opening in the starting rotation for Pittsburgh to begin the season, and the plan is to use Mlodzinski as essentially a long reliever to begin the game. We shouldn’t expect an insane workload from Mlodzinski, but the first inning is all we care about in this matchup. Tampa Bay was able to win 2 of 3 games against Colorado to open its season, but that was on only 10 combined runs scored. The Rays’ retooled offense is a strikeout-prone unit, so I expect a scoreless first inning in today’s matchup.
Baltimore Orioles vs Boston Red Sox: YRFI (-120)
Odds available at DraftKings sportsbook at time of publishing. Playable at that price.
Boston has started slowly, losing 3 of 4 games to Texas to open the 2025 campaign. Wilyer Abreu and Kristian Campbell have done their best to keep this offense afloat, but I expect the rest of the order to rebound nicely in their next series against the Orioles. Baltimore is 2-2 following a series with Toronto, and I like the matchup on paper to start this series with Boston. The Red Sox will start Sean Newcomb, a 31-year-old southpaw who spent the last 2 seasons with the Athletics. Newcomb made just 7 appearances last season with Oakland, allowing 17 baserunners and 7 earned runs in 10.0 innings of work. Baltimore is without Gunnar Henderson to start the season but still boasts a lethal lineup capable of producing in this spot.
Cade Povich will start for Baltimore on the heels of an up-and-down spring training. The left-hander has avoided being included in several trades Baltimore has made and instead is a part of the starting rotation to begin 2025. The O’s hope he can take a step forward for a rotation that desperately needs it, but this is a tough matchup against a Boston lineup that got to him in the first inning of their most recent meeting last season.
