MLB Picks for July 5: Baseball Best Bets, Predictions, Odds on DraftKings Sportsbook

Here are my favorite bets available on DraftKings Sportsbook for Wednesday’s MLB slate.

Detroit Tigers vs. Oakland Athletics

Ibanez has been on an impressive roll. In a 20-game span where he’s logged 80 plate appearances, Ibanez is hitting .303 with six doubles and four home runs. Six of those 20 games were multi-hit performances.

More importantly, 25 of those 80 plate appearances came against left-handed pitching. Across those opportunities, he’s posted a .333 ISO. He’ll put that to the test against Ken Waldichuk, who’s allowed righties to post a 36.8% hard-contact rate against him this month. Although, a righty bat hasn’t taken the Oakland lefty deep in a while. Perhaps someone with a 53.7% fly-ball rate like Ibanez could bring that drought to an end.

June was a bit of a mixed bag for Josiah Gray. The right-hander had three outings in which he gave up one run or fewer over at least five innings, but he also gave up four-plus runs three times. As much as he still has a good season-long ERA of 3.30, June was his worst month by far. Although, that shouldn’t come as a huge surprise when considering he entered June with a 4.51 FIP.

And now, Gray is about to be tested by a lineup that has a .218 ISO against right-handed pitching since mid-June. Not only that, the Reds have just a 21.4% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching during the same time frame. Washington has been striking out even less frequently than right-handers, but Cincy clearly has the superior lineup against righties — the Nationals have a middling .155 ISO against them since June.

Not that it would’ve taken a superior lineup to get to Graham Ashcraft over the last couple months. He’s struggled since his dominant April, allowing his ERA to balloon to 6.66. But even while posting a 9.66 ERA from May to July, the Reds managed to go 4-6 in his starts. Last time out, he posted his first quality start since the beginning of May, so it may be a sign he’s turned the corner — at least enough to be competitive, which is all this Reds lineup needs.

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All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests.

The contents contained in this article do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment.