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Top 3 MLB Betting Picks for Tuesday, September 21st (2021)

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Once again, on a Tuesday night, Major League Baseball takes back the attention of the sports betting nation with no college or professional football to compete with for a few days. If your attention has been focused on the gridiron of late, there has been some real opportunity to make money wagering on baseball lately. Several playoff contenders that have routinely been big moneyline favorites are stumbling to the finish line. As of Monday night, both the Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago White Sox were .500 or worse in their last ten games. On the National League side, most playoff contenders have taken care of business lately, with the Braves the only team currently in the playoffs that were under .500 in the same stretch.

Will we follow these trends and oppose any big moneyline favorites in today’s column?

Here are my MLB top betting plays for Tuesday. (Odds courtesy DraftKings Sportsbook)

View the best player prop bets for today’s slate with our MLB Prop Bet Cheat Sheet >>

YTD: 171-138-8 (+17.58 units) 

Cleveland Indians -1.5 runs (+130)

The Cleveland Indians are doing all they can to avoid their first losing season since 2012 as they head into tonight’s contest with a 73-76 record. However, if they got more starts out of tonight’s pitcher, Cal Quantrill, they would not likely be hovering around .500 at this point. Quantrill (6-3, 2.89) has lost just once since June 6th and has won six of his last seven decisions. He is undefeated with a 4-0 record and a 2.27 ERA in 20 home appearances (12 starts) this season and has allowed more than one earned run just once in his last seven home starts. He has been especially tough on left-handed hitters lately, not allowing a hit to any left-handed batter in his previous two starts.

Quantrill is opposed by Daniel Lynch (4-5, 5.34), who left his start last Thursday early due to calf tightness. Lynch had not faced Cleveland since a May 3rd start when he allowed three runs in 4.2 innings. However, he also did not come into his last start before the injury with the best momentum, as he had allowed ten earned runs in his last 8.2 innings.

If you were not already sold on the Indians based on the pitching matchup, consider that they have won 11 of their 14 meetings against Kansas City this year. Given that dominance, we opt for the better value with the runline over the moneyline odds.

Mets-Red Sox OVER 9.5 runs (-105)

The Mets and Red Sox enter tonight’s series opener having played many low-scoring games in their series recently. The under is 4-0-1 in their last five meetings in Boston and is 7-1-1 in their previous nine meetings overall. However, given how Boston has swung the bats recently, we look for tonight’s outcome to be different.

The Red Sox have scored at least seven runs in five straight games and four or more runs in 13 of 16. Their .326 batting average at home over the last 14 days is the best in baseball, as is their .350 on-base percentage at home for the season. They face Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman (9-12, 2.88), who has allowed a combined .305 batting average and .467 slugging percentage against current Red Sox hitters in their career. Boston’s Eduardo Rodriguez (11-8, 5.00) has allowed 11 earned runs in his last 7.1 home innings and is a candidate to allow runs of his own tonight. One of those poor outings came against the light-hitting Texas Rangers, who rank 29th in the majors in scoring.

The under is 12-8 in the 20 games following Mets’ days off this season, but Rodriguez’s poor form has us trusting their ability to produce runs.

Colorado Rockies ML (+175)

In the opening, we alluded to the fact that we would take on a big favorite tonight, and that comes with this pick as we like the Rockies to upset the Dodgers in this series opener at Coors Field. Colorado’s home-road splits have been well-documented, as their 45-27 home record is worse than only that of the Dodgers and Giants in the National League. The Dodgers have won five of their last six games at Coors Field, but we like the positive momentum that Colorado’s starting pitcher brings into this matchup.

Antonio Senzatela (4-9, 4.06) has pitched to a 2.60 ERA in his last seven starts and has allowed three earned runs or less in each start in that span. Six of those seven starts came against teams in playoff contention, as his start against the Cubs was the only one he made against a team with a losing record in that span. One of those starts included seven shutout innings in Dodger Stadium on August 29th, where he allowed just two hits and struck out five.

These days, it is a tough sell to opposed Dodgers pitchers like Walker Buehler and Max Scherzer. Thus, we take our chances against Julio Urias (18-3, 2.99) and hope his 5.45 ERA in eight career appearances (six starts) in Coors Field leads to a Rockies win.

MLB Prop Bets


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Mike Spector is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeSpector01.