Welcome back Baseball. Let’s get into some games to close out the weekend and hopefully get the working week off to a good start. It’s been a decent start to the season with our predicted winners looking good, just need to turn that in more profit on the plays. A few results go either way and we were looking at a great week. As mentioned previously, there are always surprises early on, the Grienke D-backs debut didn’t go to plan, unlucky to play large on those upsets. Long season ahead of us so we will continue to take it easy and see how things play out.

Best Bet – Cardinals $1.67
Next Best – Dodgers $1.77
Multi – Royals/Pirates $2.79 (0.5u)

San Francisco Giants vs Los Angeles Dodgers (6.05am AEST) 

Giants ($2.10) –  Bumgarner (18-9, 2.93 ERA) 2015
Giants ($1.77)  – Kershaw (16-7, 2.13 ERA) 2015

Prediction
Dodgers. Early season, have to love seeing match ups like this. Bumgarner was shaky in his season opener, by his standards. Going 5 innings giving up 2 Home runs and 5 hits overall. Kershaw on the other hand was dominate as usual, shutting down the Padres, with 9 K’s over 7 innings with 1 hit. He looked very good. Both teams batts lit up the opening few days with the Dodgers scoring 31 runs over the first 4 games and Giants with 29. Kershaw has done some pretty good work over the past 3 season at AT&T Park going 4-1 with a 1.66 ERA over 7 starts. Giving up only 1 Home Run. Your not going to get this price on many Kershaw starts and after getting pumped in the opening game, LA will be extra keen to take something from this series.

Suggested Bet –  Dodgers $1.77
Multi Filler –  None

Atlanta Braves vs St Louis Cardinals (9.10am AEST) 

Braves ($2.25) – Teheran (11-8, 4.04 ERA) 2015
Cardinals ($1.67)  – Martinez (14-7, 3.01 ERA) 2015

Prediction
Cardinals. After getting swept in their opening series the Cardinals bounced back with a soild come from behind win over the Braves. Still yet to get a great pitching display in 2016 they throw Carlos Martinez on the mound here. He had a break through season in 2015 putting up some great numbers with an impressive strikeout rate. He had a shutout over the Braves last year over 8 innings striking out 6. The Braves started the season as we expected, make no bones about it, there isn’t much to like on this current team. Teheran may be the exception, he was solid in his first outting in the young season and has put up good numbers in the past against the Cardinals. This one looks like a low scoring game but the value would still be with the head to head result on the Cardinals.

Suggested Bet –  Cardinals $1.67
Multi Filler –  Under 8.5 $1.44

Kansas City Royals vs Minnesota Twins (9.15am AEST) 

Royals ($1.64) – Kennedy (9-15, 4.28 ERA) 2015
Twins ($2.32)  – Milone  (9-5, 3.92 ERA) 2015

Prediction
Royals. Ian Kennedy will be making his Royals debut, and after a poor 2015 he will be wanting to start fresh at a new ballpark. Kaufman stadium and a solid defence behind him should improve those numbers. Tommy Milones road stuff has always been a concern, although he does have a few wins at KC in the past. He is a solid enough pitcher yet he tends to start seasons off a tad slow. The Royals are just so good at getting on base and keeping the line moving I like them to build the pressure up on Milone and just wear him down. If Kennedy can get off to a good start in this one, say no runs first 3 innings then the Royals will just grind out another W.

Game Bet –  Royals $1.64
Multi Filler –  Royals TT o3.5 $1.57

All Prices Quoted via Crown Bet at time of writing.

For records. Best Bet 2 Units, Next Best 1 Unit, Multi Units stated

Hopefully your thoughts on the games match up with mine. As always these are only a select few games I was interested in, feel free to share your opinions on any games at @MLB_TheProfits on Twitter. Happy Punting.