Top MLB Betting Picks: July 12th Best Bets & Predictions
Season record 22-24-1, -3.21 units
The All-Star game is nearly upon us! We have a full slate of games Saturday, plus the MLB Futures Game at 4pm Eastern. Why MLB buries that game year after year as opposed to playing it on any number of the free slots in the next five days is a mystery to me, but hey, I totally digress. Let's try to make some money ahead of the break!
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Toronto Blue Jays at The Athletics
The red-hot Blue Jays picked up 11 victories in the past 12 games, including a 7-6 victory last night in Oakl.....I mean West Sacramento against the A's. They face off again tonight with RHP Kevin Gausman on the bump for Toronto vs. LHP Jacob Lopez for the Athletics. This game is available on MLB Network at 10:05 p.m. ET.
Gausman enters amidst a very solid, though unspectacular, 4.15 ERA, 1.15 WHIP season. Gone are the high K days of years past, as he's a 23.8 percent strikeout percentage guy in 2025, down from a 2020-23 run where he was between 28-32 percent every year. He's also allowed more elevation on contact over time as his 17.7 LA and 45.5% FB% this season mark career highs.
Those trends could cause some problems Saturday night. Sutter Health Park is super hitter friendly all of the time, and might be particularly so tonight. Our friends at VSiN.com give it a HR Factor of 133 tonight. It's hot and humid. and the balls could fly. The A's are an overall poor team, but that is mostly due to their pitching. They have a team wRC+ of 100, meaning they're literally league average. Over the last two weeks, that's up to 112. Rookie Nick Kurtz has emerged as a force, popping homers in 3 of his last 4 games, and 16 overall in 227 PA's with a 16.7 percent Barrel% and 92.0 EV. Brent Rooker has kind of quietly put up another solid season with 19 homers, a .274 average and 130 wRC+. Tyler Soderstrom slumped for the better part of two months after Kurtz burst onto the scene and displaced him from 1B to Left Field. But he's heating up again, going 10-for-19 this week with homers in back-to-back games, and three of the past five outings.
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The A's should score, but can they keep the red hot Jays off the board? Lopez gets the gig, and he had a lights out four-start run in mid-June where he put up a 31 percent K% and 0.39 ERA over 23.1 innings. But, alas, he's come down to Earth a bit, as he's yielded seven runs and 12 hits plus walks in just 7.2 innings over his last two starts.
He gets a tough task facing the Jays tonight, as they're pretty much rolling all at once. Eight players have a wRC+ of 142 or greater during the past 12 games, and none of them are named Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He's all the way down at 97 and has just one homer and a .250 average. Everyone else is popping, though Lopez won't have to face all of them. Nathan Lukes is batting .389 over this run, but he'll sit for the lefty, as might emerging star Addison Barger. George Springer will not sit, and he's on an absolute heater with five homers, 11 runs and 13 RBIs during the streak.
It's possible Lopez holds the Jays down a bit early, but he's not likely to last long, as he's only gone over 4.1 innings in three of his last nine starts. And the A's have the 2nd worst bullpen ERA in the league at 5.57, so they're ill-suited to get a ton of outs. I see this game as a slugfest between the park and two good offenses. I like the Jays to keep the momentum going, plus they have some betting trends in their favor. They're a league-best 25-15, 27 percent ROI at night, and 14-8, 26.7 percent ROI vs. lefty starters. The A's, for their part, have not figured out how to win at their new, temporary home as they're just 18-30 with a -24.6% ROI.
MLB Best Bets
- Blue Jays Moneyline -140 (at BetMGM)
- Over 10 Runs -112 (at DraftKings Sportsbook)
- Nick Kurtz 2+ Total Bases +120 (at DraftKings Sportsbook)
