The last Monday of September is the best empty day on the calendar. No games to chew on, a whole postseason sitting there like a plate of food nobody has touched yet, and a card of MLB best bets today that consists entirely of me staring at pitching announcements and waiting. Nothing has cleared my number. That is not modesty, that is the honest state of the desk on a day with no games and no starters posted outside one dugout.
Here is what has my attention going into Tuesday.
What I'm eyeing for MLB best bets today
- Payton Tolle, Game 1 in the Bronx. The reporting says the Red Sox rookie left-hander gets the ball Tuesday night for the AL Wild Card Series opener at Yankee Stadium. A rookie lefty, October, that ballpark, that lineup. Markets have a reflex with rookies in this spot, and the reflex is usually to price the resume instead of the stuff. What would turn it into a play: a first-time-through-the-order read that says Boston trusts him deeper than the crowd does.
- The order behind him. Sonny Gray, then Ranger Suarez. That is not a random stack, that is a team telling you it plans to win a three-game sprint with veterans in the back and is willing to go get Tolle early. Which means Game 1 bullpen usage is really a Game 3 question. What turns it into a play: how many leverage arms Boston burns Tuesday.
- The late window at Petco. Cubs at Padres, 10:00 ET. Run environment, marine air, a park that has eaten more optimistic totals than I care to remember. I do not have starters for it yet. When those names post, I have something. Until then I have a hunch, and hunches do not get graded.
- The pace tell. Average nine-inning game time went up 3 minutes, 43 seconds this season to 2 hours, 42 minutes, partly on the robot umps. Sounds like trivia. It is not. Longer games in October mean more mid-inning challenges, more resets, more relievers. I am watching whether that holds when every pitch is being appealed by somebody.
| Tuesday, Sep 29 | First pitch (ET) |
|---|---|
| Phillies at Braves | 2:00 |
| White Sox at Astros | 5:00 |
| Red Sox at Yankees | 8:10 |
| Cubs at Padres | 10:00 |
The one I lean on most
Tolle. Not a play, a lean, and I want to be precise about the difference: a lean is where I think the mistake lives before I can prove it. Rookie starters in hostile Octobers get treated like a math problem with one variable, and the variable is usually "rookie." The real variable is whether Boston lets him face that lineup a third time with Gray and Suarez waiting behind him. I do not have his season splits in front of me yet, so I am not going to dress a feeling up as a number.
checked the almanac: these two met in the 2021 AL Wild Card Game at Fenway and Boston sent the Yankees home 6-2. Different rosters, same weather in the building. Back to business.
What I am watching next: the other three pitching announcements, and whether Boston's Game 1 pen gets used like a team playing one game or a team planning on three.
This stuff is entertainment with variance attached, 21+ where it is legal, and a day with nothing clearing is a perfectly good day to bet nothing at all.