A nice 2-1 night! That’s how we bounce back after a little rough stretch. We should’ve had a 3-0 sweep on our NRFI and YRFI bets yesterday, but Ronald Acuna decided he wanted to try to steal TWO bases and got thrown out at third with Austin Riley and Matt Olson behind him. Somewhat infuriating, but I’ll never be super triggered with making some yum yum on no run first inning bets on any given night. A little salty though? Absolutely.
We’ve got a TON of early games on the docket today, so you gotta check in quick with us here, but lucky for you, I’m rolling with two yes/no run first inning bets today for Wednesday, April 17 in the mid-afternoon window. If you’re hungry for more, check out our MLB betting tools or our other MLB articles! Also, check out our guide to NRFI & YRFI betting.
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NRFI & YRFI Bets Today: Best No & Yes Run First Inning Picks
St. Louis Cardinals vs. Oakland Athletics | NRFI & YRFI Bets Today
Again, we see another low total out in Oakland between the Cardinals and A’s with a couple of offenses struggling to generate runs. So we can look to attack a NRFI with the projected total sitting at just 7.5
Paul Blackburn is 3-0 on no run first inning bets this season and has been pretty convincing in doing it.
He’s only walked three batters all season, and actually has his lowest walk rate of his career through three starts — 4.2%.
The Cardinals are also basically allergic to taking a walk, ranking 7th to last in all of baseball in walks so far this season (52 so far this year).
Blackburn’s concerted effort to throw his changeup more is clearly making a big difference for him, and we’re seeing that in his early results in 2024. So at least we have something to hang our hats on as the reason we’re seeing such drastically different results. Not just noise and wild variance.
Blackburn can get us three outs in the top half.
Cardinals starter Steven Matz has also been pretty good in his own right, only giving up three earned runs in 15 innings so far this season. Matz is also 3-0 on no run first inning bets this season, which includes cashing NRFI picks over offenses like the Dodgers and Diamondbacks.
Matz has basically killed his curveball usage and gone to a three-pitch mix with the sinker-changeup-slider combo, and it’s been working well for him.
The A’s have struggled as a whole against lefties this season:
- .200 Batting Average
- .245 On Base Percentage
- .354 Slugging Percentage
- .599 OPS
- 26 Total Hits
So we’re looking at a pretty much anemic offense against southpaws.
It’s a super low total in a park that we know is good for minimizing offense, so we’re going to fire on the no run first inning here and hope these two guys can keep their NRFI dominance going.
YRFI & NRFI Bets Today: Cardinals-A’s NRFI (-120, DraftKings)
Chicago Cubs vs. Arizona Diamondbacks | YRFI & NRFI Bets Today
I’m still a tad salty that we didn’t get a full sweat to cash our YRFI bet to get the sweep last night. But I’m hoping we get our chance at redemption today in this Cubs-Diamondbacks game.
We have a couple of chumps on the mound in the desert in Jordan Wicks and Brandon Pfaadt — and you know we can never trust anyone who has a name that sounds like John Wick.
Let’s start with Pfaadt against this Cubs offense. The Cubs handle right-handed pitching pretty well and have a .327 OBP against RHPs this season — a Top 10 mark so far this season.
Pfaadt doesn’t walk a ton of guys, just 1.6 per nine innings, but he does give up a lot of hits — 10.8 per nine to be exact. That’s … a lot of hits. And this Cubs team has some pop between Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger, Cristopher Morel and Michael Busch. When those guys connect, they can do some real damage.
Now, the real fun begins when lefty Jordan Wicks toes the rubber in the bottom half of the inning. This fella has given up 11 runs in 12.2 innings but hasn’t allowed a home run yet, which seems somewhat odd. But the real issue for this kid is he LOVES to give up a walk. He has a 12.3% walk rate so far this season, which, by my count, is … not good.
Arizona has been a potent offense so far this season, especially against lefties. Let’s take a quick look how they rank in a few categories vs lefties this season:
- Batting Average: 1st (.309)
- On Base Percentage: 1st (.363)
- Slugging Percentage: 3rd (.455)
- Home Runs: 2nd (7)
- Doubles: 1st (15)
So clearly they see the ball well and have plenty of guys who can hit the ball well with power from the right side of the plate. And it all starts with Ketel Marte atop the lineup. He’s a career .303 hitter with a .358 OBP and .873 OPS against lefties.
Yan Gomes could be behind the plate for the Cubs as well, which means the Diamondbacks might have even more avenues to scoring runs in the first inning with him being one of the slower catchers when attempting to throw out would-be base-stealers.
We’re looking at a 9.5 total here in Arizona and with two starters who love to allow baserunners, I like our shot at getting a run early. Let’s take the yes run first inning bet here and root for some fun in the desert.
YRFI & NRFI Bets Today: Cubs-Diamondbacks YRFI (-120, Caesars Sportsbook)
