By the skin of our teeth, we cashed in on that Guardians-Twins NRFI bet yesterday! It was SWEATY, baby! Tanner Bibee gave up that one-out triple but somehow struck out Byron Buxton and got that soft tapper back to the mound with two outs to cash the no run first inning bet for us. But, you know, what? We deserved that after the shenanigans from Wednesday!
We’ve got games throughout the day, and I’ve got three NRFI bets today for Friday, April 5. 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.
NRFI & YRFI Bets Today: Best No & Yes Run First Inning Picks
Oakland Athletics vs Detroit Tigers | NRFI & YRFI Bets Today
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that these two teams aren’t very good. And they’re generally some of the best teams to target for no run first inning picks.
Tarik Skubal is one of my favorite NRFI bet pitchers to back, and he’s on the bump today for Detroit.
The fella can really bring it. In fact, he saw almost a full mile per hour increase on his four-seamer in his first start of 2024 than he had in all of 2023. That’s extremely promising for a guy who was coming off injury.
Skubal faces the Oakland A’s, who have an implied team run total of 2.89 today. The top three hitters in the A’s lineup don’t hit the fastball-slider-changeup mix that Skubal throws well at all.
Only Brent Rooker has any real positive run value on those three pitches (four-seamer), and this is a guy who had a 32.7% strikeout rate a year ago.
I’m extremely confident in Skubal to get the job done for us in the top of the first, and get us the three quick outs here.
JP Sears will be our huckleberry in the bottom half. Is he going to be a guy we’re going to rely on a ton for NRFIs this season? God I hope not. But, I think against the Tigers in this matchup, we can take a shot.
The game has a total of only 7.5, so we’re not looking at a game that projects with a ton of offense.
I’m given a bit more confidence by looking at the statcast data for Tiger hitters Matt Vierling, Andy Ibanez and Spencer Torkelson, as they haven’t shown much success in the past against Sears’ bread-and-butter mix of four-seamers, sweepers and changeups.
There’s always potential of Torkelson to ruin a NRFI bet by lucking his way into a dong, especially with the strong side platoon advantage, but if Sears can feed him some good offspeed stuff and keep the bases empty ahead of him, I think we’re good.
Fire up the no run first inning bet here.
YRFI & NRFI Bets Today: A’s-Tigers NRFI (-125 Bet365)
San Diego Padres vs San Francisco Giants | YRFI & NRFI Bets Today
I’ve talked before about how getting value on these YRFI and NRFI bets is crucial — on any bet really. But these especially because of the somewhat volatile nature of the bet. I think we found some good value here in this Padres-Giants game.
Jordan Hicks is making his second start against the Padres this season, only this time, it’s at home. The first start went well, though, for the reliever-turned-starter. He went five innings, allowed only three hits, struck out six guys and only walked one. That’s huge for a guy like Hicks who has been known to have some command issues in the past.
The max velocity of his four-seamer was down from 100.3 to 98.1, but that’s to be expected when you make the jump from only being asked to throw an inning, to be expected to go upwards of five. However, harnessing the velocity could be the elixir he needed to gain better command of the fastball and keep him around the zone more often. The split-finger was the star of the show in that start, though. He threw it 14 times and it had an 80% whiff rate — and got four Ks.
Dylan Cease was the opposing pitcher in the game against Hicks last time out as well. He went 4.2 innings, gave up two earned runs on two hits and struck out six as well. What stuck out to me was that he really leaned heavily on that slider — he threw it more than his fastball.
Why does that stick out to me? It shows me that they’re seeing the same things we’re seeing with statcast data. The top four hitters in the Giants lineup are far better against the four-seamer than they are the slider, so he was hammering that slider — especially to right-handed hitters. And, when we’re looking to cash a NRFI, we’re looking for guys to really be getting down in the nitty-gritty about keeping guys off bases and not give up extra-base hits.
Jorge Soler and Michael Conforto have plenty of swing-and-miss in their game, so even if Cease allows a baserunner ahead of them, he could wiggle out with a big strikeout or two. Let’s look for the no run first inning here at the good -115 value.
It was always the NRFI.
YRFI & NRFI Bets Today: Padres-Giants NRFI (-115 Bet365)
Seattle Mariners vs Milwaukee Brewers | YRFI & NRFI Bets Today
I don’t always take three NRFI bets, but when I do, it generally involves the Mariners in the nightcap. Don’t ask me why, it just always seems to work out that way. Mostly because they play on the west coast, and logically, they play the later games. So, that would probably explain it. But, ya know …
The Brewers are actually HOSTING the Mariners, so this one is in the midwest tonight, but it’s the second-to-last game on the slate.
The Brewers are sending Freddy Peralta out, which can be a scary proposition. Why? Because you could get Cy Peralta, or you could get WOAT Peralta. Depends on the day. He has shutdown stuff that can stymie any good offense in baseball, but implodes at times that makes you scratch your head.
The biggest issue he has comes via the walk. So long as he can keep the walks under control, I like his chances against JP Crawford, Julio Rodiguez and Jorge Polanco.
Rodriguez always makes you a little nervous with that big-time pop, but he does strikeout about 25% of the time, as does Polanco. Crawford can be a pest at the top of the lineup. So, the real key will be to keep him from drawing that leadoff walk and setting Peralta’s mental game off kilter immediately.
Mariners starter Logan Gilbert is basically the anti-Freddy Peralta. He basically never walks ANYONE. The fella had 4.7% walk rate last year, which ranked in the Top 5% of MLB last year. And when we’re looking for NRFIs — spoiler, we’re looking at ALL NRFI bets today — that’s a very good thing.
So, we know he’s rarely going to allow guys on freely. However, he did give up 29 dongs in 190.2 innings last year, but that number seems EXTREMELY high considering it jumped from 19 in 185.2 innings in 2022. That number is almost assuredly going to come down this year, and he’s likely due for some positive regression in that home run/flyball category this year.
Gilbert’s also about a strikeout-per-inning guy, now should we take a look at the strikeout rates of the Brewers top four hitters?
- Jackson Chourio: 28.6% K Rate
- William Contreras: 24.6% K Rate
- Christian Yelich: 21.8% K Rate
- Willy Adames: 27.5% K Rate
Lots of strikeout potential here in this Brewers lineup lends itself nicely to missing a lot of bats, which we love when eyeing a no run first inning pick.
We’re going to hopefully finish off the trio of NRFI bets today with this Mariners-Brewers NRFI, and call it a clean sweep.
Let’s go where no NRFI man has gone before!
YRFI & NRFI Bets Today: Mariners-Brewers NRFI (-135 Tipico)
If you’re looking for other ways to play, why don’t you check out some of the best daily MLB DFS picks in the industry?
