MLB Best Bets Today August 29:
It is a rather busy Thursday on the MLB card with 12 games, including a handful of early starts. The Angels and Tigers have the earliest start with a 1:10 p.m. ET first pitch. We don’t have a ton of big favorites on the slate for today, but we don’t have many closely-lined games either. It will be interesting to see what happens, as getaway days can be a little bit wonky.
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Here are the MLB best bets today for August 29:
Miami Marlins at Colorado Rockies (-130, 11.5)
3:10 p.m. ET
A midday matinee in Denver features Valente Bellozo for the Marlins and Bradley Blalock for the Rockies to wrap up this four-game set. Colorado has a game and a half lead on the race to the bottom in the NL and a chance to win three out of four in the series here today.
I like the matchup for the Rockies against Bellozo. The 5-foot-10 right-hander doesn’t throw hard to begin with, but something may be amiss. Per Statcast, his fastball velocity in the last two games has been 87.8 mph and 87.9 mph. He had been 89 or better in every MLB start and sat 91.2 mph in the minors. Over his last two starts, Bellozo has allowed six Barrels and 21 hard-hit balls for a 16.2% Barrel% and a 56.8% Hard Hit%.
I can’t imagine pitching on an 80-degree day in Colorado is going to be all that helpful. The Marlins also made four errors yesterday and now rank 26th in Outs Above Average per Statcast with -21.
Bellozo has danced around danger in most of his starts, despite a 47.4% Hard Hit% and a 9.5% Barrel% by pitching to an extremely high launch angle. I’m not sure fly balls in Colorado are a viable pitching plan.
The Marlins bullpen is also not very good after getting gutted at the Trade Deadline. I was deciding between Rockies Over 3.5 for the 1st 5 at plus money or Over 5.5 for the game at -120. I think either one is good and it’s worth noting that the Marlins have six relievers in their MLB bullpen that they have claimed off waivers this season.
I’ll roll with the full-game team total, as I could see Miami halfway to San Francisco as this game goes along. If I had more faith in Blalock, I could see the rare home team run line as well, but he’s got an ugly K/BB ratio and a lot of regression signs in the profile.
Pick: Rockies Team Total Over 5.5 (-120)
Baltimore Orioles at Los Angeles Dodgers (-148, 9)
10:10 p.m. ET
Cade Povich and Bobby Miller are the listed starters here for the Orioles and Dodgers in what could very well be a World Series preview. Although, neither one of these guys would make a playoff roster with how they are pitching right now. This is the rubber match of the three-game set and should be a fun one.
I’ll preface this by saying that I like the 1st 5 Team Total Over for both teams. The Orioles are pretty heavily juiced at -160, but Bobby Miller’s having a throwaway season and his two starts since returning from the minors have been quite bad. To keep things simple in the write-up, I’m going to focus on the Dodgers, but I do like Baltimore’s as well.
The Dodgers are 2.5 with -115 both ways at DraftKings, where I’m still pulling odds from since that’s how it started this season and that’s how we’ll wrap it up, even though VSiN is independent of them again. I just really don’t like this matchup for Povich. He’s got a 34/25 K/BB ratio with a 6.10 ERA and a 5.90 FIP.
The Dodgers make you work. They’re going to draw walks. They’re going to hit balls hard. I actually ran a Statcast query about facing elite velocity (97+ mph) to see where the Orioles were because Miller does throw very hard. What I found is that the Dodgers are actually rather bad against premium velo. They rank 27th in SLG.
But, Povich does not boast premium velo by any stretch. The Dodgers actually have the league’s top SLG against fastballs 96 mph or lower. Povich sits around 92. So, if you want to beat the Dodgers, you have to throw really, really freaking hard. Povich does not and also has bad control, which should help the Dodgers set up some innings.
Hopefully Freddie Freeman can play tonight. Even if he doesn’t, the Dodgers should score early. So should the Orioles, but I expect that’ll be 2.5 this afternoon and I don’t know what the vig will be, so I don’t want to tip that as an official play.
Pick: Dodgers 1st 5 Team Total Over 2.5 (-115)
