The leading NL Cy Young contenders will do battle early on Thursday afternoon as the Atlanta Braves host the Arizona Diamondbacks. Although it’s not quite the weekend, plenty of baseball fans and bettors alike will have an eye on this game during the workday. Trust me, I’ll be following along with it, too. Let’s dig into today’s Diamondbacks-Braves odds as we make our predictions and pick the best MLB bet!
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Best MLB Diamondbacks-Braves Betting Pick & Prediction: Atlanta Can’t Be Stopped
Diamondbacks-Braves Odds
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
D-backs: +158 | Braves: -188
D-backs +1.5: -126 | Braves -1.5: +105
Over 9: +100 | Under 9: -122
Coming out of the All-Star Break, RHP Zac Gallen and RHP Spencer Strider are neck-and-neck in the NL Cy Young Award race. They’ll line up against each other on Thursday in Cobb County. Strider’s 3.66 ERA is actually worse than his 3.06 xERA, likely because Truist Park is quite friendly to hitters. Gallen’s 3.14 ERA is impressive, but his 3.68 xERA is much less so. The Arizona ace’s ERA also balloons to 5.11 on the road. Strider and Gallen both took on these lineups in June: Strider allowed three hits and two earned runs across six innings; Gallen gave up nine hits and two earned runs across six innings.
Atlanta also has a massive edge on offense. The Braves lead the MLB in expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) at .361, far outpacing the 23rd-ranked D-backs at .313. While Atlanta’s wOBA slots in at only .356, which suggests there is room for positive regression, Arizona’s wOBA slots in at .328, which suggests the opposite. The D-backs have just one individual batter with an xwOBA above .350. In contrast, the Braves have five: Matt Olson, Sean Murphy, Marcell Ozuna, Austin Riley and, leading both the league and the team in the metric, Ronald Acuna Jr. Those bats have often come alive at home this season, as Atlanta’s overall OPS of .831 ticks up slightly to .845 at Truist Park.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Braves are relatively large favorites to beat the D-backs on Thursday afternoon. They own outright odds of -188 (65.2%) at FanDuel and -205 (67.1%) at DraftKings. You won’t make a ton of money betting on the Braves to win on Thursday, so I recommend passing on that market and looking elsewhere. Getting Atlanta to cover the runline at odds of +105 (48.8) at FanDuel looks like a great deal. Arizona’s bullpen has struggled this season, and the Braves beat the D-backs by three runs in Gallen’s last start. With Atlanta’s bats picking up steam and narrowing the gap between their actual and expected production, it’s hard not to back the Braves to win by multiple runs at better-than-even odds.
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Best Diamondbacks-Braves MLB Pick: Braves -1.5 +105 at FanDuel
