MLB Best Bets Today August 12:
A new week gets underway with 11 games, as one interleague game between the Cubs and Guardians serves as the only outlier from intraleague action. Five games in the NL and five games in the AL are on the slate, with only a couple of extreme favorites on the betting board. Most teams have a little over 40 games left, so for those in the playoff mix, these are all important days from here on out.
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Texas Rangers at Boston Red Sox (-125, 9.5)
7:10 p.m. ET
The Rangers and Red Sox fire up a series at Fenway Park with Tyler Mahle and Brayan Bello as the listed starters. Boston has really been struggling and will turn to Bello, who is coming off of the paternity list to make this start. Mahle is making just his second start of the season after missing more than 15 months with Tommy John surgery.
Let’s start with Mahle, who went five innings against the surging Astros six days ago and allowed one run on five hits. He only struck out two, but Mahle had a 34.3% O-Swing% and an 85.7% F-Strike%, so he got ahead in the count and did well to get the Astros to expand the zone. For his first MLB start in so long against a disciplined offensive bunch, it was an encouraging outing. Mahle yielded a 38.9% Hard Hit% and just one Barrel out of 18 batted balls.
Bello comes in with a 5.16 ERA and a 4.61 FIP on the season. His 3.74 xFIP suggests some positive regression, but I’m not buying it. For a ground ball guy, the fact that Bello has allowed 18 HR speaks to some really shoddy command. He’s just under a strikeout per inning, but he’s allowed a .325 BABIP and a 20% HR/FB% because of his lack of command. He’s also allowed a 43% Hard Hit%.
This is Bello’s second straight season with a paternity list stint and one that required travel, as he was said to be flying back into Boston on Sunday. He’s allowed 11 runs on 22 hits in 22 innings in four starts since the All-Star Break. I also feel like manager Alex Cora may ask for too much from Bello here. Red Sox long and middle relievers threw 266 pitches this weekend and that doesn’t even take into account the 74 from Brad Keller.
In the second half, the Red Sox pen has a 7.07 ERA with a 5.92 FIP in 85.1 innings, so they’ve struggled. So have many of the starters. Mahle had that good first start and allowed five runs on 11 hits in 18 innings over six rehab appearances. Plus, Boston is really pressing right now.
Pick: Rangers +105
Pittsburgh Pirates at San Diego Padres (-198, 8)
9:40 p.m. ET
There is a lot to unpack with this game, as former Pirate Joe Musgrove makes his return to the big leagues to face his old team. Marco Gonzales has not yet officially been named the starter for the Pirates tonight, but it would be a tad tricky to go with an opener after five relievers were needed yesterday and closer David Bednar threw 38 pitches. Plus, Domingo German is one of the other relievers and he threw 75 pitches on Friday. This could be something of a Jake Woodford/Gonzales tandem.
Musgrove is only expected to throw 60 pitches or so after coming up shy of 50 in his lone rehab start, but that isn’t really the whole part of the story for me. The San Diego Union Tribune wrote about Musgrove’s return and the cliff notes version here is that he’s dealing with bone spurs in his elbow that will need to be removed after the season. In the meantime, he’s overhauled his mechanics in hopes of lessening the pain and strain. It is entirely possible that this works out for him, but I’m not exactly encouraged to hear that.
He allowed two runs on four hits and hit a batter in his Single-A rehab start back on August 4. He only struck out two batters. Again, I can’t say I’m very encouraged.
Gonzales has a 4.54 ERA with a 6.75 xERA and a 4.72 FIP in 33.2 innings and hasn’t really been an effective pitcher since the COVID-shortened 2020 year. He just faced the Padres and allowed five runs on eight hits in just 4.2 innings. He’s allowed four homers and nine runs on 15 hits over his last seven innings.
For argument’s sake, in case the Pirates don’t start Gonzales, Woodford has allowed 17 runs on 21 hits in 17 innings this season. He had a 6.23 ERA with a 7.04 xERA and a 6.61 FIP last year. He’s not a very good pitcher either. As a result, I’m okay with going “Action” here instead of insisting on the listed pitchers.
The full-game Over 8 (or 8.5 if it gets there) is probably fine here as well, as the Padres pen has had a massive workload over the last six days. Even though I love their collection of relievers, these dudes have worked a lot. And the Pirates pen stinks.
Pick: Pirates/Padres 1st 5 Over 4.5 (-115)
