Lindy's MLB Picks Today: Best Bets For Friday 7/17
Baseball is back. Friday, July 17 is the first full slate out of the All-Star break, 15 games deep, and Eric Lindquist opened his return episode of Leans, Likes & Locks still riding the high of an 11-3 nuke of a Friday before the break (nearly a 10-unit day on the back of an Elly De La Cruz-powered home run barrage). That kind of week creates its own thesis for this one: the board has been posted for days with nothing else for the market to chew on, but every bullpen in baseball got the same three days off he did. That reset bullpen, more than any stale price, is where Friday's card actually lives. Below is his full fired card, the reasoning behind each play, and the leans he flagged but did not bet.
One vocabulary note first, because it changes how you read this. A lean is a game or prop he likes but has not bet, an official play is one he fired, and the sizing (units, quarter unit, half unit) tells you the conviction. Do not tail a lean as if it were a bet already made.
In Summary
- The Lock Of The Night: Twins-Cubs Over 10.5 at Wrigley Field. Lindy called both starters "bad" outright and took the alternate number at close to even money rather than lay extra juice on the main total.
- The Home Run He's Most Sure Of: Xander Bogaerts (SD) to homer at plus money against a right-hander who leaks righty power, in a Kauffman Stadium that's playing hot and humid.
- The Coors Total: Reds-Rockies Over 11.5 on a Cincinnati bullpen day, paired with a smaller Mickey Moniak (COL) home run play against a righty-vulnerable Brady Singer.
- A Money Line And A Longshot Homer: Houston Astros money line against Baltimore, plus Curtis Mead (WSH) to homer against Oakland's Gage Jump.
- Three Strikeout Props: overs on Jared Jones (PIT) and unders on Cal Quantrill (TEX) and Michael King (SD), all built off bottom-up projections rather than a stale market number.
- Shop and price every one of these on the OddsShopper MLB odds screen before you fire.
Watch: Lindy's Leans, Likes & Locks (MLB)
Lindy runs all 15 games in one Friday breakdown, including the weather notes on the Canadian wildfire smoke drifting into Cleveland and Toronto that could affect two of tonight's games. Watch it in his own words: Watch on YouTube.
Why A Fully Rested Bullpen Is The Whole Story Tonight
Every number on tonight's board has been sitting up since before the All-Star break, so the easy edge (a book a few cents slow on a fresh line) isn't really available. What is available: for the first time in months, every bullpen in baseball is fully rested and fully staffed off three straight off days. That single fact reshapes how Lindy reads tonight's totals, because a manager sitting on a full pen has no reason to leave a struggling starter in to save his relievers, and a fresh bullpen coming in cold in the middle innings is a different animal than the taxed, matchup-limited pen you get in August.
Key point: when a book's price is already efficient, the edge has to come from a read the market hasn't priced yet, not from shopping a stale number harder.
Hold onto that idea, because it's the reason his two lean money lines on the board (Miami and San Francisco) haven't turned into plays yet. Both hinge on exactly which relievers a manager is willing to use first out of the break, and that's still a guess on the road-team side of a doubleheader.
The Lock: Twins-Cubs Over 10.5 At Wrigley
Find the one thing that's extreme on the board, and tonight that's Bailey Ober (MIN) against Colin Rea (CHC) at Wrigley Field. Lindy was direct about both arms: he does not trust either one, and the wind is blowing out at Wrigley on a card he flagged as his best number of the night. His sim came back well over the posted total, wide enough that this is the one play he put in his lock category: his highest-conviction tier, reserved for numbers he'd still bet even a click worse.
The price discipline matters as much as the read itself. Rather than lay the extra juice on the round-number 10, he took the alternate line at 10.5, priced close to even money, because the key numbers in a baseball total live at 6, 8 and 10 runs, so the half run between 10 and 10.5 costs you almost nothing relative to what you save on the vig. He said he'd happily take 11 at plus money too, since two rested bullpens facing two shaky starters into a stiff Wrigley wind is exactly the kind of spot where the extra runs come free.
The Rest Of Friday's Fired Card
Every other official play from the stream, in the order Lindy walked through the slate:
| Play | Matchup | The read |
|---|---|---|
| Rays-Red Sox (G1) Under 8.5 | Griffin Jax (TB) vs. Jake Bennett (BOS), doubleheader Game 1 | His biggest stake of the night. Good hitting weather is on the board, but he's fading it because every bullpen behind these two starters is fully rested for the first time in weeks: the exact fresh-pen dynamic from above, working in the under's favor here instead of a total's. |
| Griffin Jax (TB) Ks | Same game | A smaller lean-sized play the other direction on strikeouts: Boston's lineup (Anthony Seigler leading off, lefties Masataka Yoshida buried in the middle) isn't built to swing and miss against Jax the way some lineups are. |
| Xander Bogaerts (SD) To Homer | at Kansas City, vs. Seth Lugo | Eight of Bogaerts' nine home runs this season have come against right-handers, and Lugo gives up right-handed power on a night Kauffman Stadium is playing hot, humid and hitter-friendly. Lindy called the plus-money price on this one a gift he couldn't pass up. |
| Michael King (SD) Under 4.5 Ks | Same game | King's strikeout rate against right-handers has fallen off a cliff this year, and Kansas City's lineup (Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez included) isn't a heavy swing-and-miss group. Bet for a smaller stake as part of a combined ticket. |
| Reds-Rockies Over 11.5 | Brady Singer (CIN) vs. Gabriel Hughes (COL), Coors Field | His favorite total behind the Wrigley lock. Hughes is getting hit hard in the strike zone (a 96% zone-contact rate, by Lindy's numbers) at altitude, in 93-degree heat with the wind blowing out. |
| Mickey Moniak (COL) To Homer | Same game | Singer has a real platoon problem against lefty power, and Moniak is exactly that profile, at a plus-300 price Lindy priced as a bigger mismatch than the number suggested. |
| Houston Astros Money Line | vs. Baltimore, Dean Kremer vs. Peter Lambert | A bottom-up play more than a top-down one: Kremer owns the highest home-run rate on the entire slate, and a healthy, returning Jeremy Peña gives Houston's lineup an edge Lindy didn't think the market had fully priced. |
| Curtis Mead (WSH) To Homer | at Athletics, vs. Gage Jump | Jump gives up hard, low-barrel contact and is walking into 85-degree heat with the wind blowing out in a fly-ball-friendly park. Mead has no pinch-hit risk behind him the way some of Washington's other bats do. |
| Jared Jones (PIT) Over 5.5 Ks | at Cleveland, vs. Gavin Williams | Jones is coming off a near-perfect start and has extra rest of his own. Cleveland's lineup, with Gabriel Arias and Kahlil Watson hitting 5-6, has run a strikeout rate against right-handers well above its season baseline over the last two weeks. |
| Cal Quantrill (TEX) Under 2.5 Ks | at Atlanta, vs. Chris Sale | The lowest strikeout-prop number Lindy said he's seen from a starter in some time. Quantrill avoids the barrel of the bat without missing bats at all, and Atlanta's lefty-heavy lineup (Dominic Smith, Michael Harris II, Drake Baldwin, Matt Olson) isn't built to swing through him. |
Two of those plays share a stadium. Both San Diego bets (the Bogaerts homer and the King under) come out of the same Padres-Royals game at Kauffman, which is why that matchup is worth a longer look before you fire anything else on the board. For more of the same category, our MLB home run picks today hub and MLB strikeout props today hub track these markets across the full slate every day.
What The OddsShopper +EV Screen Is Also Flagging
Lindy's card is his own bottom-up projections. The tools behind it are open to everyone, and the +EV screen was surfacing its own value on Friday's board, concentrated in four of the same games Lindy already keyed on, all in the hits market.
Nationals-Athletics, the same game as the Mead home run play, is where the screen found its widest gaps of the night:
| Bet | Fair odds | Best takeable | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joshua Kuroda-Grauer (ATH) Over 1.5 Hits | +175 | +195 (Bet365) | +7.3% |
| Andres Chaparro (WSH) Over 0.5 Hits | -155 | -140 (Bet365) | +4.2% |
| Nasim Nunez (WSH) Under 0.5 Hits | +122 | +130 (Bet365) | +3.6% |
Dodgers-Yankees, a game Lindy watched but stayed off (more below), still has the screen's cleanest under-market value of the night:
| Bet | Fair odds | Best takeable | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shohei Ohtani (LAD) Under 0.5 Hits | +173 | +200 (Bet365) | +9.9% |
| Tommy Edman (LAD) Under 0.5 Hits | +136 | +155 (Bet365) | +8.1% |
| Mookie Betts (LAD) Under 0.5 Hits | +184 | +200 (Bet365) | +5.6% |
| Ryan McMahon (NYY) Over 0.5 Hits | -113 | -105 (Bet365) | +3.6% |
Reds-Rockies, the same Coors total and Moniak homer above, adds two more:
| Bet | Fair odds | Best takeable | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ezequiel Tovar (COL) Under 0.5 Hits | +164 | +175 (Bet365) | +4.2% |
| Kyle Karros (COL) Under 0.5 Hits | +198 | +210 (Fanatics) | +4.0% |
And Twins-Cubs, tonight's lock game, has one more layer worth knowing:
| Bet | Fair odds | Best takeable | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Bregman (CHC) Under 0.5 Hits | +198 | +210 (Fanatics) | +4.0% |
The eye-catcher is Ohtani at +200 to go hitless. Nobody likes betting a star to go 0-for-anything, and that's exactly why the value sits there: the market shades toward the name, and the screen's fair no-vig price says a hitless Ohtani game is closer to a +173 shot than the +200 you can actually take. Same logic drives the Michael King strikeout under above, just applied to a bat instead of an arm. The crowd's instinct and the math disagree, and the math is getting paid.
Leans He's Watching, Not Betting
A few reads stayed in the "watching" column tonight. They're worth knowing, but Lindy did not officially fire them, so treat them as leans, not plays:
- Roki Sasaki (LAD) Strikeout Under, At Yankees. His own projections like it (Sasaki is walking into a hot, humid Yankee Stadium against a righty-heavy lineup and Gerrit Cole is giving up rising barrel rates), but he said his data likes it more than he does, and he stayed off it.
- Miami Money Line, At Milwaukee. Sandy Alcantara eats innings and Miami's lineup has been pesky, but the number is sitting in a "dead zone" for him; he wants it closer to plus-135 before he's interested.
- St. Louis, At Arizona. No official Cardinals starter was announced when he recorded, so he's watching props here rather than forcing a side before the announcement.
- San Francisco Money Line, At Seattle. Bryce Miller's fastball velocity dipped in his last start and Landen Roupp brings a ground-ball profile that plays well in a park skewing toward lefty power, but Lindy said he's "auspiciously close" to firing this one, not there yet.
How To Shop These Numbers Yourself
The theme of tonight's card cuts against the usual advice: on a night this stale, shopping alone will not manufacture an edge, because the market has had days to correct the obvious mispricings. The edge came from projecting each game and betting where Lindy's number and the market disagreed: the Wrigley wind, the fresh bullpens, the Bogaerts platoon split. Shopping still matters once you know what you want to bet; it just isn't the source of the edge tonight the way it can be on a fresher slate.
Here's the mechanic in one worked example, using the screen's own read on the Ohtani under. The fair, no-vig price on Ohtani going hitless is +173, which implies a real chance of roughly 37%. The best takeable price on the board is +200 at Bet365, which only needs about a 33% chance to break even. You're getting paid for an outcome that's more likely than the price implies, and that gap is the +9.9% edge.
Multiply that discipline across every ticket on a 15-game slate, and the saved cents compound into real money over a season.
Two tools do this automatically. The MLB strikeout props screen lines up every book's number on props like tonight's Jones, Quantrill and King plays, and the free bet converter squeezes full value out of any bonus bets your book hands you. Every best-takeable price on the hits board above landed at Bet365 — if you don't have an account, our Bet365 promo code page has the current sign-up offer and how to claim it. New to player props? Our player props betting explained guide breaks down how these markets get priced and why the no-vig number matters.
New to OddsShopper? Try OS Pro free for 7 days, and code LINDY25 takes 25% off your first week or month if you subscribe.
Start your free trial Lindy posts his complete card on Tails and breaks the slate down further on his daily research show on the OddsShopper YouTube channel.
Bottom Line
Friday's slate rewards the read, not the shop. With every number posted for days and every bullpen freshly reset off the All-Star break, Lindy's card leans on projection over price-hunting: the Wrigley over is his lock, Bogaerts' homer is his cleanest plus-money price, and the Coors total, the Astros money line and three strikeout props round out a full return to action. Pair his card with disciplined shopping on every ticket you do fire, and you're betting the same way he is: off a number you built yourself, not off whatever's sitting on the board.
This card is our recap of Eric "Lindy" Lindquist's Leans, Likes & Locks MLB research stream. Every price is subject to movement, so confirm your number and confirm the lineups before you bet.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Lindy's top MLB pick for Friday, July 17? The Twins-Cubs Over 10.5 at Wrigley Field is his lock of the night — he called both starters shaky, the wind is blowing out, and his projection came back well over the posted total.
Is Xander Bogaerts a lock or a lean tonight? It's an official fired play. Bogaerts is projected to bat third against a right-hander who leaks righty power in a hot, humid Kauffman Stadium, and eight of his nine home runs this season have come against right-handers.
Why is Michael King a strikeout under tonight? His strikeout rate against right-handers has fallen off this season, and Kansas City's lineup, including contact bats like Vinnie Pasquantino and Salvador Perez, isn't a heavy swing-and-miss group.
Which sportsbook has the best price on these bets? It changes by market and by the minute, which is why shopping still matters even on a stale-line night. The OddsShopper MLB odds screen lines up 20+ books on every bet so you can grab the best number before it moves.
How do I get the OddsShopper discount? New users get a 7-day free trial of OS Pro, and code LINDY25 takes 25% off your first week or month if you subscribe.
