After a nice 3-0 sweep last night, we're fired up for tonight's MLB card! The Orioles continued to impress by beating the Rays in 10 innings. That cashed both our run line and moneyline plays.
The Cubs vs Cardinals Over was a bit of a sweat, but it ended up going over. Thank goodness the Cardinals offense put up 7 runs! Sweeping the board is always a good feeling, and we'll look to capitalize on that positive momentum.
Here are 3 MLB Best Bets for Friday, July 21 to kick off your weekend in the green! Best of luck with all of your plays and have a fabulous weekend!
Best Bet: Cubs (-122)
Might as well kick our Friday off with some daytime baseball at Wrigley! I love Justin Steele and don't mind paying a little juice to back him in this spot. The powerful lefty is 9-3 with an ERA under 3 this season. He's also 2-0 against the Cards this year.
Steele's hard-hit rate of only 32.7% is also excellent. Cardinals starter Jack Flaherty is okay but is walk rate of almost 12% is more than a bit alarming. The Cubs also have the slightly better bullpen in this matchup (4.36 runs per 9 allowed vs 4.93 for STL).
They cooled off a bit last night, but this Cubs lineup has been on fire of late. The North Siders have averaged 10.6 runs per 9 innings against righties over their last 5. Look for Patrick Wisdom, who has homered 3 times over his last 5 games, to come up big in this daytime tilt.
Best Bet: Giants (-146)
Anytime I can fade a bottom-feeder like the Nats at a decent price I'm going to do it. I'm not crazy about Alex Wood, but Jake "Swervin" Irvin sucks just as bad as Wood does. This San Fran lineup should be able to rough up Irvin in this one.
Speaking of the Giants lineup, they have 5 hitters with an XSLG of .430 or higher. Guess how many the Nationals have? ONE! Needless to say, San Fran has a much more powerful lineup.
The biggest edge though may be the Giants bullpen. San Fran relievers have an ERA of 3.73 while Washington's pen clocks in at a whopping 5.54! Let's roll with the G-Men!
Best Bet: Phillies (-113)
This one's a bit tricky. The starters are about even, but I like Ranger Suarez a tad bit more than Gavin Williams. Suarez has slight edges in both walk rate and strikeout rate.
Cleveland has the better bullpen, but not by much. Plus, we already saw on Wednesday that the Guards relievers can blow big leads.
Overall, we think Philly has a much better than lineup that Cleveland. Five hitters in the Phillies lineup have an XSLG of .433 or higher. Cleveland only has 3 in that category. Look for Kyle Schwarber to help us out by going deep in this one!
