Even though there is football on tonight, it is still important to not forget about the MLB. While the slate is lighter due to Thursday being a travel day, there is still plenty of value on the board.
For this article, we will be giving out our favorite MLB home run predictions of the day, and we are looking to stay hot after cashing Shohei Ohtani last night.
Tyler O’Neill Home Run (+350) FanDuel
New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox, 7:15 p.m. ET
O’Neill hit a huge walk-off home run for the Red Sox yesterday, and we are counting on him to go yard in back-to-back games, as he has an excellent matchup tonight.
He is going up against Nestor Cortes, who is absolutely a pitcher you want to target with a right-handed bat, especially when Cortes is playing on the road.
On the season, Cortes has allowed 23 home runs, including 21 to right-handed hitters. He has also allowed 12 total home runs on the road in about six fewer innings pitched away from Yankee Stadium.
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Cortes’s HR/9 against RHH on the year is 1.48, up from 0.50 against LHH, and his HR/9 away vs. RHH is up to 1.80. For whatever reason, Cortes struggles much more when he is pitching on the road.
As for O’Neill, he has been red-hot against left-handed pitching recently. In the last month against LHP, O’Neill has hit six home runs with a 38% barrel rate, 53% HardHit rate and 40% fly-ball rate.
Putting the ball in the air is the biggest advantage O’Neill has over Cortes. Cortes allows the highest launch angle in the MLB (22.8 degrees) and the fourth-highest fly-ball rate (49.2%).
O’Neill, meanwhile, does an excellent job putting the ball in the air against left-handed pitching. He has a fly-ball rate of 51.3% against LHH, which is the eighth-highest against lefties specifically, and would be fourth-highest without the lefty qualification.
Units: 0.75U
Brandon Lowe Home Run (+500) BetMGM
Tampa Bay Rays vs. Cleveland Guardians, 7:15 p.m. ET
Lowe did not come through for us with a home run yesterday, but in his defense, he did hit a triple that traveled 404 feet at 103.2 mph off the bat. The ball was, unfortunately, hit to the deepest part of the stadium and hit the top part of the outfield wall, but about three feet in any other direction, that was going to be a home run.
So, this is all to say that, despite the fact that Lowe did not leave the park yesterday, he is still hitting the ball extremely hard and remains a good bet to hit a home run if he keeps this up.
The pitching matchup does not look like a juicy one on paper, as Guardians pitcher Gavin Williams has only given up two home runs to left-handed hitters over the past two months, with a low HR/9 of 0.62, while only allowing a home run every 52.50 at-bats against LHH.
That being said, against righties, Williams has a HR/9 of 1.71 with a HardHit rate of 52.31%. So, it is not as though he is unhittable, and generally the right-handed pitcher vs. left-handed batters favor the batter.
Williams also throws a 4-seam fastball over 50% of the time to lefties, and according to the “Stuff +” metric on FanGraphs, he has a below-average 4-seamer in terms of spin rate, velocity and movement.
Lowe has done the majority of his damage recently against 4-seamers. The triple that he hit off Wheeler last night that traveled 404 feet was off a 4-seamer, and two nights before that, he hit a 414-foot home run off of Phillies closer Carlos Estevez.
On a separate note, we also like another player in this game, Tampa Bay’s Jonathan Aranda at +800 at Caesars, as an honorable mention. The SparkNotes version on Aranda is that he has been hitting rocket after rocket against RHP. He is absolutely worth a sprinkle at the high plus-odds available at Caesars.
Brandon Lowe Units: 0.50U
Jonathan Aranda Units: 0.25U
Rob Refsnyder Home Run (+600) FanDuel
New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox, 7:15 p.m. ET
For our final pick of the day, we are heading back to the Red Sox-Yankees game and taking another Boston batter, this time Rob Refsnyder. If you are sensing a theme here, Refsnyder is similar to O’Neill (and Lowe & Aranda) in that he has been hitting missiles off of left-handed pitching recently.
In the past week alone, Refsnyder has hit two home runs off lefties, with a 16% barrel rate, 66% HardHit rate and 33% fly-ball rate. Here are some of his at-bats against lefties in the past two weeks:
- 96 mph off the bat, home run (sinker)
- 106.1 mph double (4-seam fastball)
- 107.1 mph, 412-foot home run (changeup)
- 110.9 mph off the bat (sinker)
- 103.2 mph off the bat (changeup)
In terms of the pitch-mix, Refsnyder will see a 4-seam fastball 55% of the time, and, while he has not seen a ton of these from lefties over the past month, the ones he has seen, he has hit hard, with three separate hits with an exit velocity of 100-plus mph.
Of course, Refsnyder also gets the same benefits of going up against Cortes that O’Neill does, making him another great option to go yard.
Units: 0.50U
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