MLB Best Bets: Cold Mets Bats, Rays Shine Bright, Mariners Adrift

With an entire week’s worth of matches under its belt, the Major League Baseball season is in full swing. It’s a little early to make grand statements after teams have played six or seven games out of 162, but there are some early trends of interest. How might they develop in the days and weeks ahead? Read on!

As always, don’t forget to check out the American League, National League, interleague, and MLB props for all your baseball action.

Seattle Marinates on a Slow Start

Given the extensive MLB campaign, one shouldn’t get too excited by a slow start when only a week of baseball has been played. Nevertheless, teams always preach the importance of starting on the right foot, and last year’s surprise postseason participant has hit some bumps in the road.

The team is 2-5 with all their games being played at T-Mobile Park, so home-field advantage hasn’t meant much so far. They opened the season with a win over the Cleveland Guardians, but then lost the next three against the same team, only to be followed by a 1-2 performance against the Angels. Can they turn it around?

Well, things don’t get easier on Easter weekend. They finally hit the road against…the Cleveland Guardians. The Ohio-based team has known more success than Seattle in recent seasons with more playoff appearances and is arguably better equipped to be a model of consistency.

Cleveland seems like a better bet on the moneyline. At best, take Seattle and the runline. Next week’s series against the Chicago Cubs feels like a better opportunity for the team to get out of its rut.

Tampa Bay’s Ray of Light

Conversely, the Tampa Bay Rays have started their season in the best way possible: winning every game. At 6-0, they’ve swept both a home series against the Detroit Tigers as well as an away trio of contests versus the Washington Nationals. As of Friday, they’re also the highest-scoring team in the MLB with 44 runs, meaning an incredible 7.33 runs per outing.

Wander Franco sports an outrageous batting average of .417. Randy Arozarena is at .364, and Yandy Diaz and Jose Siri have earned .333 averages. Again, the season is young. A handful of good days at the office will produce vertiginously high averages like that. The real question is can they keep up a similar, if not necessarily as ferocious a pace?

This weekend’s schedule suggests the odds are good, what with the Oakland Athletics in town. Through six games, the A’s rotation has a nightmarish ERA of 5.79. In fact, the Boston Red Sox arrive in Florida for a three-game set after Easter and they haven’t pitched that well either so far (5.57)

New York “Meh” Mets

In 2022, the New York Mets sported one of the best regular seasons in the franchise’s history. It didn’t end well. A big division lead in September evaporated – with the crown going to Atlanta – then crashed out of the Wild Card round of the playoffs at home. So far in 2023 they look more like the September-October 2022 Mets than they do the April-July 2022 Mets.

A 3-4 record isn’t a disaster and can certainly be overcome, but it will get fans worried as to whether the winter and spring did their job in making the club forget a bitter end to last season. To be fair, all seven games were on the road, with the second series coming against the Brewers, one of 2023’s surprise bright starts. Nevertheless, New York can’t keep playing mediocre ball all season. In their case, the bats need to wake up. With a club average of .208, they’re 27^th in the majors. Pete Alonso, Jeff McNeil, Mark Canha and the gang need to get going.

They open their doors at home for the first time this weekend versus the Miami Marlins (game one is being played as of this writing) and host San Diego next week. Neither has pitched well so far. This is an excellent opportunity for Mets hitters to warm up. Put some faith in those New York hitters in the coming days.