Let's cap off the week with two MLB expert picks for today.
I'm taking Eric Fedde and the underdog St. Louis Cardinals as my first pick and then eying the UNDER in a Zac Gallen vs Clayton Kershaw NL West battle.
Here are my two MLB expert picks for Friday:
MLB Expert Pick Today: Cardinals (+158) vs Yankees
Cardinals vs Yankees Odds - Game Time: 7:06 pm ET
Folks I do not get this line at all. I understand that the Cardinals have fallen out of the playoff picture, but they’re not even playing that bad lately. St. Louis is 6-3 in their last nine (+3.4 units in that stretch).
Plus, the Cards have an objective pitching edge in this one. Fedde has allowed two or fewer runs in five of his last eight outings, rocking a 3.31 ERA on the season. He has an 8-7 record despite playing most of the season for the historically bad White Sox.
On the other side, the Yanks send out Marcus Stroman, who owns a 3.88 ERA on the season (and 4.94 FIP). The Yanks have lost four of Stroman's last eight starts and he's allowed a 5.40 ERA in that stretch. Active Cardinals hitters own a collective .327 average and .862 OPS against Stroman, too.
This game looks much more like a pick ‘em to me, so when they’re giving the Cards these heavy underdog odds, I’m taking them for sure.
MLB Expert Pick Today: Dodgers vs Diamondbacks UNDER 8.5 (+100)
Dodgers vs Diamondbacks Odds -- Game Time 9:41 p.m. ET
We don't usually get this high of a run total in an ace vs ace battle. But they're giving us O/U 8.5 runs with Zac Gallen vs Clayton Kershaw tonight.
Gallen has allowed one or zero runs in four of his last seven starts, rocking a 3.65 ERA on the season. Kershaw has a 3.72 ERA on the season and has allowed three or fewer runs in all but one of of his six 2024 starts. Kershaw's success dates back to last year, too, where he's gone UNDER 2.5 ER allowed in 15 of his last 19 starts (as shown by Outlier below):
The big key here, though, is historical success. Kershaw has allowed a .219 average and .687 OPS to current DBacks hitters. Gallen is just as good, holding active Dodgers to a .221 average and .685 OPS. That's not much offense.
The UNDER 8.5 runs has hit in four of Gallen’s last six starts (at this +100 line that’d be +2 units of profit). The same UNDER has hit in three of Kershaw’s last four outings.
