A couple of day games get a full slate underway today, including Max Fried trying to right the ship after a shaky first half of the month. Our MLB predictions, however, focus on the later games with two strong leans, one of which exposes splits you may be unaware of while the other fades a starter coming off of his best start of the young season.
Top MLB Predictions for Wednesday, May 13
San Diego Padres vs. Milwaukee Brewers: No Run First Inning
This might be a fun game in that it could come down to the wire, but I don’t think it’ll be all that entertaining in the early going.
Both the Padres and Brewers are bottom-10 offenses in terms of wOBA through the first six weeks of this season, and neither has the type of matchup that our Fantasy Starter Projections suggest will allow them to shake off those early-season struggles.
For first-inning bets, or just quick-settling bets in general, you generally need the table setters to do their thing. Based on what we’ve seen to date, Jacob Misiorowski and Michael King are two of the very best when it comes to executing the plan out of the gates.
Opposing 1-2 hitters have just four hits in 39 at-bats against King this season. In the rare instance they’ve been able to put pressure on him, he’s allowed just a .138 batting average with RISP.
And guess what?
Misiorowski has been better (1-2 hitters are 4-for-41 against him, and opponents as a whole are hitting .115 with RISP). It’s rare that I put a first-inning wager in this space given the variance that can happen, but it’s also rare that we get two profiles like this squaring off.
St. Louis Cardinals vs. Athletics: JT Ginn Under 16.5 Outs
We saw Ginn spin a gem last week in Philadelphia, and that has the 26-year-old generating some excitement within the betting community.
Let’s slow-play this a bit. It was, after all, less than two weeks ago when the Guardians got him for five runs in 4.1 innings, forcing him to throw 88 pitches.
For the season, his FIP is 23.8% higher than his ERA, and while the highs have been high, a .203 ISO to left-handed bats is a tough weakness to overcome.
The Cards are one of the best offenses in terms of marrying a low chase rate with aggression, a matchup nightmare for a pitcher like Ginn. St. Louis hasn’t exactly been swinging it well in May, but that approach is one I like to have access to when fading a starter in this regard.
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