It is a beautiful Saturday across the country, and we will be looking for some MLB best bets to celebrate. With all 30 teams in the second game of their weekend series, let’s dive into the numbers and see what bets stand out.
MLB Best Bets for Saturday, May 18th
Best Bet #1) Minnesota Twins First 5 Innings money line (-118)
When the Minnesota Twins take on their AL Central rival in the Cleveland Guardians, they should be able to take a lead into the second half of the ballgame. One big reason for that is their edge in starting pitching, where Minnesota will be sending out Bailey Ober for the start.
Ober has been electric this year, posting the 26th best SIERA at among 149 starters with 20+ innings pitched at 3.26, and that drops down to 3.00 when taking out his first start of the year where he gave up eight earned runs. Outside of that initial outing, Ober has went at least five innings in all seven of his starts, giving up more than two runs just once. He should be able to dominate a Guardians lineup that has registered just the 23rd ranked wRC+ the past couple weeks and has been much better against left handed pitching (7th wRC+) than right (21st wRC+).
Cleveland will send out southpaw Logan Allen, who has massively struggled this year and ranks 144th in Stuff+, 114th in strikeout rate, and 110th in SIERA. The Twins should be able to contribute to Allen’s woes, as they have feasted against lefties, ranking 8th in the MLB in wRC+. With both offensive and pitching advantages, Minnesota should have an early lead in this matchup on Saturday.
Best Bet #2) Boston Red Sox money line (-114)
For the next best bet, we head to the midwest where the St. Louis Cardinals will host the Boston Red Sox, where the visitors should bounce back after losing last night.
A major reason will be the starting pitching matchup where Boston sends out Kutter Crawford, who has been electric in 2024, posting the 32nd best Stuff+ rate and ranks top 10% of pitchers for hard hit rate allowed. The Cardinals have had better hitting as of late, but this isn’t a lineup that projects to be great and Crawford should have an extended leash after their bullpen had to put in plenty of work on Friday night.
St. Louis sends out Miles Mikolas to the mound, who ranks just 92nd in SIERA and 107th in Stuff+, and falls in the bottom 50% of all Baseball Savant pitching metrics expect walk rate. Boston’s offense has been good this year outside of a tendency to strikeout (4th worst in MLB) but that is much worse against left handed pitching than right (31% vs 24%) and Mikolas has the 20th worst strikeout rate among starters with 20+ innings.
In a spot where Boston has a sizable in starting pitching and the better offense overall, taking them to win game two of the series is a best bet.
