The 2025 Major League Baseball season now has two full weeks under its belt and though the results to this point remain a small sample, we’ve gotten a little bit of data. That means we can comfortably start diving in with some fun gambling plays each and every Friday. Yes, I’ll be here every week until the World Series has concluded.
The general goal here is to find two plays for Friday, along with one home run play and a futures play, but it’s always possible that things will change as we move forward.
There’s a full slate of 15 games on Friday and all of them come at night, so let’s go with a little Friday Night Lines, shall we? All lines are from DraftKings.
The Rangers are 9-4 and sit in first place in the AL West, but it could be said that they were in a bit of a team-wide slump through Monday’s 7-0 loss in the cold in Wrigley. They scored six runs in each of their last two games against the Cubs and even the outs were loud in Wednesday’s win before they got a day off. It’s a shame they lost Wyatt Langford to injury, but Josh Jung just returned and I think the bats are ready to get going here.
Bryce Miller takes the mound for the Mariners. He hasn’t been very good this season and the Rangers have hit him well three of the four times they’ve faced off (8.64 ERA in 16⅔ innings).
On the Rangers’ side, it’s Jacob deGrom and a fully rested bullpen against a bad Mariners’ offense that is prone to the strikeout.
No need to get cute here. We’ll just grab the Rangers to win the game.
Mets team total over 5.5 (+110)
We have no choice but to operate in the small samples right now, but the road offenses have loved facing the A’s in Sutter Health Park at night so far this year. The Cubs scored 18, 7 and 10 runs, respectively, while the Padres scored 5 and 4.
Offensively, the Mets haven’t seen Francisco Lindor really get going, nor is Juan Soto hot. Mark Vientos hasn’t done anything and Brandon Nimmo is capable of better. This might be the right spot. Plus, Pete Alonso’s bat speed has increased and he’s killing the ball right now. The Mets in 2024 and this year so far generally have hit lefties better than righties and it’s southpaw J.P. Sears on the bump for the A’s. Plus, the A’s bullpen has been terrible (5.17 ERA) so far.
I’m not going to trust the pitching side for the Mets right now, but we don’t need to. We just need the offense to score at least six runs and while I realize it’s a high number, I love this spot for them.
The menacing lefty has gotten off to a slow start for the season, but that only means the good stuff is coming soon. Angels starting pitcher Jack Kochanowicz has proven to be decently homer-prone in both his minor-league and brief major-league careers to this point. He allowed seven homers in 11 starts last season and three in two starts so far this year.
More than anything, though, home run plays come with a gut feeling. Mileage varies per hitter, but they are always pretty unpredictable. I feel like Alvarez is due to have a series where he goes deep multiple times and this is a good spot to start.
Futures play: Braves to win NL East +265
The best price here would’ve been when the Braves were 0-7 or 1-8, but I’ll still take this one. They are five games out, but they still have 150 games to play. They’ve won three of their last five games and just took a series over the Phillies, who were 7-2 with a series win over the Dodgers coming in.
The returns of Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. aren’t far off. Matt Olson, Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley and Michael Harris are going to hit better. The schedule to start the season with seven road games in southern California was brutal. The schedule the rest of April and through the third week in May are much lighter.
I know falling back six games early (as they were through Wednesday) seems a bit daunting, but the Braves came from 10.5 games back to start June in 2022 and won the division. This isn’t the same team, obviously, but it’s fewer games with significantly more time to spare. They simply had a fluky-bad start under tough circumstances and it hasn’t been enough to come off my preseason prediction of the Braves taking the NL East over tough Phillies and Mets teams. I am undeterred and, if anything, elated to get such a nice number here for gambling purposes.
