The MLB slate perks up Tuesday with the official start of summer, the opening of three interleague series and the continuation of intriguing sets between contenders in Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Minnesota. We’ll focus on just a handful of MLB lines with some quality bets to be made on first-inning scoring.
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Mets vs Astros
Trevor Williams gets the nod for the New York Mets in the opener of a two-game series, the first matchup between these teams in nearly five years. He has been slow to get going in starts, giving up five runs in his five first innings.
Opponents have a pair of homers and have produced a .937 OPS in the first against Williams, who allowed two runs in the opening inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers his last time out. He will be facing a Houston Astros lineup that has jumped all over starters of late with nine first-inning runs over the last four games. The Astros are first in the American League with a first-inning scoring percentage at the home of 44.83.
That makes for several trends that might impact the MLB odds for those betting online at the sportsbook as it relates to first-inning runs.
Jose Urquidy goes for Houston Astros against a New York offense that thrives in the first, albeit mostly at home, where they score nearly 56 percent of the time. The right-hander from Mexico has held his last three opponents off the board in the first, but early scoring was rather regular against him in the first two months of the season — opponents scored in the opening frame in five of his first eight starts.
Urquidy simply doesn’t have a lot of clean innings and the Mets lead the majors in runs scored, batting average and on-base percentage. Seems like a good chance for some early fireworks in this one.
First Inning to Score: YES
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Mariners vs Athletics
To begin with, we have two less-than-stellar lineups, to put it mildly, But looking even deeper suggests it might be goose eggs early in Oakland.
Marco Gonzalez has a 2.95 ERA in the first inning, giving up one of his runs in that frame on a play in April in which he was injured. Otherwise, he’s been mostly clean early in games, holding opponents to a .203 average in the first three innings. That scenario played out in his one start vs the Athletics in which he breezed through the first three innings before getting beat up a bit in the fourth.
The same pattern is often followed by Oakland Athletics starter James Kaprielian. The former first-round pick, of whom big things were expected after a solid 2021 campaign, has given up 24 earned runs in 23.1 total innings from the third frame and beyond. The first two, however, are often clean. He’s let up single first-inning runs twice in nine starts, once on a Corey Seager homer and once at Fenway Park.
Kaprielian also coasted early in his one matchup with the Seattle Mariners this season before getting hit hard in the middle frames.
The Mariners score about one-fifth of the time on the road. The A’s score about one-fifth of the time at home. With this matchup, we like both percentages to fall and for bettors to make a quick buck on their MLB picks.
First Inning to Score: NO
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Blue Jays vs White Sox
Kevin Gausman looked like a Cy Young Award contender early in the season for the Toronto Blue Jays. His recent struggles have changed that tune, as the right-hander owns a 6.35 ERA over his last four starts.
Part of that slump includes some issues early in games. Gausman has given up at least one run in the first inning in four straight starts, including one against the White Sox on May 31. Additionally, the Chicago White Sox got star leadoff man Tim Anderson back from the IL for Monday’s series opener and he instantly got them on the board with a single and a run scored.
Dylan Cease will oppose Gausman as he tries to break free from a wacky stretch. Of the 10 runs he’s allowed over his last four starts, all of them are unearned, an almost impossible set of results that has lowered his ERA to 2.91 while covering up some other issues.
The righty has walked 15 batters in those four starts, failing to get through five innings twice.
Cease allowed a run in the first inning against Detroit his last time out. The Blue Jays are not the Tigers. They score in the first inning at a higher percentage than any other AL team (38.81).
First Inning to Score: YES
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Dodgers vs Reds
Due to the lockout that extended into 2022, pitchers weren’t afforded a full opportunity to stretch out during condensed spring training. The first start or the two of the regular season played out as extended spring outings, in a way, and many were abbreviated.
Such was the case for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Tony Gonsolin, who allowed a run in his first inning this season as part of a three-inning start at Colorado on April 9. Since then, nobody has touched him in the opening frame, as he’s spun 11 consecutive scoreless firsts as part of his 8-0 start.
Included in the run is a relatively clean first against the Cincinnati Reds on April 15.
Gonsolin has limited opponents to just two doubles and two singles in 40 first-inning at-bats. He has allowed one run total in 18 innings over his last three starts. And while the Reds have been a force offensively in the first inning from time to time, they haven’t had a run-in that frame in any of their last nine games – including all three this past weekend vs. Milwaukee at home.
Tyler Mahle, who gets the start for Cincinnati, was pounded by the Los Angeles Dodgers in an earlier meeting, but all of the runs came in the fourth inning after he retired nine of 10 batters in the first three. He’s in quite a groove now, having spun nine scoreless innings his last time out. That lowered his ERA over a four-start span to 1.30.
The Dodgers’ offense is prolific, but less so without leadoff star Mookie Betts, who is out with a cracked rib. They have yet to score in the first inning of the five games Betts has missed in 2022. We expect that to continue against Mahle.
First Inning to Score: NO
