Today’s Best Bets
Sam Choudhury
We have finally made it to the Fall Classic. Welcome to a special World Series edition of MLB best bets. Friday, we’ll take a look into Game 1 as the Arizona Diamondbacks head to Arlington to take on the Texas Rangers.
Arizona Diamondbacks @ Texas Rangers
Coming into this season, I had neither of these teams coming this far. Arizona came into this year as a sleeper to just make the playoffs with a young, talented roster. Well, a two-game sweep of the Brewers, three-game sweep of the Dodgers and dramatic series comeback win against the Phillies later, and this Arizona team now has a spot in the biggest stage in baseball. The Rangers entered the season a bit differently after being buyers in the offseason. They brought in Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi and added Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer at the trade deadline. It’s safe to say expectations were much higher for Texas, but to make it to this point was not on anybody’s bingo card. Yet here we are with what sets up to be a very entertaining World Series to say the least.
With deGrom on the shelf, Nathan Eovaldi pitched like the ace of this team. He finished the season 12-5 with a 3.63 ERA. Eovaldi has been great in the postseason throughout his career with an 8-3 record across 15 games with a 2.87 ERA. He’s kept that dominance going once again for the Rangers this postseason. He enters 4-0 with a 2.42 ERA across 26 innings.
Eovaldi his provided consistent length for the Rangers whenever he’s taken the mound, and I believe that will continue Friday. He’s gone at least six innings in all four of his playoff starts and only surrendered 7 runs across 26 innings. The Diamondbacks ended the last 30 days of the season with the sixth-worst wRC+ against RHP and the 12th worst in on-base percentage. Arizona may be able to scratch across a few hits against Eovaldi, but the veteran has just been too clutch to not provide a strong six inning performance once again for this Texas rotation.
Best Bet
Nathan Eovaldi over 15.5 outs (-140, BetMGM)
