MLB Best Bets Today August 19:
Ten games are on the MLB card for Monday, with six interleague matchups. We only have one NL game and three AL games for today, as we also have some TBD starters and some late pitching changes. It’s that time of the year. Guys will be skipping, innings will be monitored, and bettors will have to stay up on the latest to see who may be stepping in and who may be skipping a start.
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Here are the MLB best bets today for August 19:
Minnesota Twins at San Diego Padres (-162, 7)
9:40 p.m. ET
We’ve got three late games in California on the interleague slate and the one between the Twins and Padres has my attention. Zebby Matthews and Michael King get the starts for their respective teams this evening with the lowest total on the board. It will be just the second MLB start for Matthews, who went five innings and allowed a couple of runs on five hits against the Royals.
Matthews had five strikeouts in that start with just a 7.8% SwStr%. He did well to get called strikes and the aggressive Royals expanded the zone a bit with a 33.3% Chase Rate. Matthews also threw 60% first-pitch strikes. Stuff+ graded three of his pitches above average and he had a Stuff+ of 104 overall. All in all, it was a very nice debut for the youngster.
Matthews has gotten a lot of strikeouts en route to the Majors. He’s had a SwStr% of at least 11.8% in each minor league stint and was at 13.4% in Triple-A in four starts before getting called up. He worked 55.1 innings at Double-A with a 14.8% SwStr%. Obviously MLB hitters are a different beast, but Matthews knows how to generate whiffs. He had 109 K over 92 innings across three levels.
I realize that the Padres have the lowest K% in baseball for the season and here in the second half, but Matthews is an elite strike-thrower with good swing-and-miss stuff and I expect him to go at least five innings tonight. Given the state of the Twins bullpen, I wouldn’t be shocked if Rocco Baldelli tried to push a little more than that out of him with an off day on Thursday and an extra day of rest. He could also be skipped this weekend to let Bailey Ober pitch on regular rest on Sunday.
Pick: Zebby Matthews Over 3.5 Strikeouts (-110)
