5 bets to consider for Sunday Night Baseball
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Sunday Night Baseball features a heavyweight showdown between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves. The Braves are the defending World Series champs, while the Dodgers won the Commissioner’s Trophy in 2020.
Both teams are off to strong starts in 2022. The Dodgers entered the day with the second-best record in the National League at 44-26, while the Braves have been the hottest team in baseball recently. They’re 19-4 since the start of June and they’ve closed the gap on the NL East division-leading Mets to just five games.
These two squads have split the first two games of this series, so Sunday’s matchup is the rubber match. Which team has the edge? Let’s dive into some of my favorite wagers for Sunday Night Baseball on DraftKings Sportsbook.
This matchup features an intriguing pitching showdown between Spencer Strider and Tony Gonsolin. Gonsolin has been a godsend for the Dodgers, who have been ravaged by injuries to their starting rotation. Walker Buehler remains out of the lineup, Clayton Kershaw just recently returned and Dustin May has yet to make a start this season.
Gonsolin has given the team some much-needed production as a starter, pitching to a 1.58 ERA across 13 starts. He’s just shy of enough innings to qualify for the ERA crown, but if he wasn’t, he’d own the top spot in all of baseball.
However, it’s fair to say that Gonsolin has gotten lucky. Opposing batters have managed a paltry .176 batting average on balls in play and Gonsolin has stranded 90.9 percent of opposing baserunners. Both numbers are abnormally high and should regress to the mean as the season progresses. His 3.44 FIP is still a quality mark, but it’s probably a truer representation of his talent as a pitcher.
Meanwhile, the Braves’ offense has been red-hot recently. They rank third in wRC+ against right-handers over the past 14 days and their .272 ISO during that stretch is the top mark in the league by a wide margin. Their offense is loaded with quality hitters, so they can find success in this difficult matchup.
The bigger question with the Braves is can they keep the Dodgers off the scoreboard? On paper, the Dodgers possess one of the top offenses in league history. They haven’t disappointed against right-handers, ranking first in wRC+ so far this season.
That makes this a brutal matchup for Strider, who is coming off his worst start as a professional in his last outing. He got rocked for six earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings, causing his ERA to jump to 4.63 as a starting pitcher. However, Strider still owns a 2.73 xFIP as a starter, so he can get outs at the Major League level.
The main way that Strider gets outs is with the strikeout. He’s been one of the top strikeout artists in baseball this season, ranking in the 99th percentile for strikeout rate. His strikeout numbers have remained steady as a member of the rotation -- as he's racked up 13.5 strikeouts per nine innings in his five starts.
The Dodgers have also been a bit more vulnerable to strikeouts as of late. They rank 10th in strikeout rate against right-handers over the past seven days, whiffing in 24.7 percent of their at-bats. As long as Strider can last five innings, he should be able to get to seven punchouts.
First hit and first homer odds are relatively new to DraftKings Sportsbook. They place a heavy premium on lineup position, with batters at the top of the lineup possessing far worse odds than those at the bottom. The batters for the road team also get shorter odds than the home team, since they have the first crack at getting a hit. For Sunday Night Baseball, the Dodgers' presumptive top three of Trea Turner (+250), Freddie Freeman (+340) and Will Smith (+550) have the shortest odds on the board.
If Strider can keep the Dodgers out of the hit column -- he owns a .182 batting average against this season -- we won’t have to wait long for Swanson to get a crack at it. He’s been batting second for the Braves recently and he’s in the midst of the best year of his career. He’s raked to the tune of a 145 wRC+ and a .307 average -- and he’s batted .371 against right-handers at home.
I like Swanson’s chances of recording a hit today -- and it’s possible he gets the first hit of the game. I’ll take my chances at +900.
Both of these pitchers have excelled at limiting the damage on balls in play, including the homer. Just 7.9 percent of Strider’s fly balls have turned into homers -- and that figure is just nine percent for Gonsolin. However, these two offenses are too potent to expect no balls to leave the yard.
I’ll take a shot with Ozuna, who homered in the bottom of the eighth inning on Saturday to give the Braves the win. His skill set lines up nicely with what Gonsolin likes to do on the mound. He throws his fastball nearly 37 percent of the time and it is his most hittable pitch by a wide margin. Opposing batters have managed a .507 xSLG against his fastball, but they’re at .299 or lower against his other three pitches.
Ozuna is the type of hitter who can tee off on fastballs. He has an insane 59.3 percent hard-hit rate against four-seam fastballs, resulting in a ridiculous .804 xSLG. He should see at least a few fastballs from Gonsolin on Sunday -- and he has the potential to put one in the seats.
Despite the numbers for both pitchers entering this contest, I like the offenses to do some damage. You could grab the over on 8.5 runs at -120 -- which is definitely a safer wager -- but I like the idea of grabbing both teams to score at least four runs at +150.
These offenses are among the best in baseball and they’re both red hot at the moment. Both teams are in the top four in wRC+ against right-handers over the past 14 days and both rank in the top seven in runs per game this season. The Dodgers lead the league with an average of 5.13 runs per game, while the Braves aren’t far behind at 4.74.
To win this wager, all we need these offenses to do is approach their season averages. That’s pretty appealing for a bet with +150 odds.
I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is mlamarca) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment in building lineups. I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.
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