MLB Betting Guide for Monday 10/23/23: Home Favorites Reign Supreme

Baseball has you covered if you want a large inventory of options to bet.
From moneylines to run totals to first-five-inning wagers, we have plenty of ways to bet the long, arduous MLB schedule daily. Outlooks can be vastly different due to starting pitchers, and a wealth of advanced stats can let us know if an individual pitcher, a bullpen, or a team is due for positive -- or negative -- regression.
Using numberFire's projections as a guide, which MLB odds from FanDuel Sportsbook are most appealing today?
Note: Lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. All stats come from FanGraphs and Baseball Savant unless noted otherwise. Please check here to make sure you're seeing the most updated projections.
Arizona Diamondbacks at Philadelphia Phillies
Phillies -0.5 in F5 Innings (-128)
The Philadelphia Phillies are in a good spot to make their second consecutive World Series as they return home with a 3-2 series lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
However, I couldn't care less about what they do over the course of the whole game tonight.
No, tonight we're more concerned with the Phillies holding a lead after five innings -- something they've done in three of five games this series.
I'm expecting them hold another early lead in Game 6 -- mostly because Aaron Nola looks like Aaron Nola again.
The righty had an up-and-down regular season, to say the least. He pitched to his highest skill-interactive ERA (3.75) since 2019, his lowest strikeout rate (25.5%) since 2016, and allowed the highest barrel rate (8.3%) of his career. However, he maintained stellar home/away splits, maintaining a 3.29 ERA and allowing a .272 wOBA at home compared to a 5.43 ERA and a .327 wOBA on the road.
The Phillies must have noticed that because all three of his postseason appearances thus far have come at home. Nola has allowed just 12 hits and two runs across 18.2 innings of work, striking out 19 in the process. On top of that, Philly has outscored their opponents 27-3 in Nola's three starts.
The most recent of those came in Game 2 of this series. Nola threw 6.0 innings of shutout baseball in their eventual 10-0 win. The Phillies out-hit the Dbacks 11-4 in that game -- a recipe they'll look to replicate in tonight's Game 6.
They stand a good chance of doing just that. I'm not sure Arizona has an answer for Nola -- not at home. They struggled mightily against righties down the stretch, ranking in the bottom 10 in wOBA (.308), ISO (.148), and wRC+ (91) against right-handed pitchers from the All-Star break onward.
As a result, the Diamondbacks would need a masterful performance from Merrill Kelly to keep things close tonight. That's not out of the question, not at all. Kelly enjoyed the best year of his MLB career this season. He finished with a pristine 3.29 ERA and struck out a career-high 25.9% of opposing batters.
However, he also registered a skill-interactive ERA north of 4.00 (4.12) for the third consecutive season. While the uptick in strikeouts was nice, his called plus swinging-strike rate (27.6%) was only marginally higher than his career mark (26.8%). Additionally, Kelly's strikeout numbers came at the cost of his batted ball metrics. Not only did he allow the highest hard-hit rate (41.8%) of his career, but he forced his lowest rate of soft contact (13.6%) since 2019.
Those shaky underlying numbers have already come back to bite him in this series. He was on the losing end of Philly's 10-0 win in Game 2, having given up four runs (including three home runs) in 5.2 innings of work.
I'm expecting more of the same tonight. For one, Kelly was much worse on the road (4.07 ERA and .332 wOBA) compared to home (2.59 ERA and .258 wOBA).
Secondly, the Phillies have absolutely crushed righties at their home ballpark over the second half of the year. In that split, they ranked fifth in wOBA (.345), fourth in ISO (.218), and sixth in wRC+ (116) since the All-Star break. In general, they've dominated at home this postseason, going 6-0 with a +31 run differential.
I don't trust either of these bullpens enough to mess around with the full-game runline, but Nola's home dominance gives me enough confidence in the Phillies to take them to hold a lead after five innings.
Texas Rangers at Houston Astros
Astros ML (-130)
Kudos to the Texas Rangers for giving us an incredible seven-game series, but the Houston Astros are inevitable. They've made the World Series each of the past two seasons and four of the last six years. With any luck, they'll add yet another pennant to their ever-growing collection.
That luck starts with what has been nothing short of an incredible turnaround from Cristian Javier. Javier looked the part of a true ace during their World Series run last year, but he struggled mightily during the regular season this summer. He posted career-worst numbers across the board, notably finishing with a 4.56 ERA and a measly 25.2% called plus swinging-strike rate.
However, Javier has flipped the switch since the playoffs began. He's allowed just two runs across 10.2 innings this year and now owns a 2.08 ERA in 43.1 career postseason innings. There's certainly a chance for a blow-up -- the Rangers rocked him for eight runs in 4.1 innings during the regular season -- but his Game 3 showing gives me confidence he'll perform. Javier picked up his second win of the postseason in Houston's 8-5 win, holding the Rangers to just a pair of runs in 5.2 innings of work.
It'll be a rematch of the same two arms that started Game 3 as Max Scherzer is slated to make his second start since returning from injury. Scherzer didn't look great in Game 3, but he didn't look great for much of the regular season, either. He let up five runs in just 4.0 innings, striking out four. He has enough left in him where I'm not expecting a complete blow-up, but it's pretty clear Father Time has caught up to Mad Max. During the regular season, he posted: the highest SIERA (3.77) of his career; his lowest called plus swinging strike rate (28.7%) since 2011; and his highest barrel (8.5%) and hard-hit rate (36.9%) since Statcast tracking began in 2015.
But those are still very good numbers! Good enough that I'm not confident backing Astros -1.5 (+152) -- even at plus odds.
There's certainly an argument to take the Over 9.0 Runs (-105), as well. The AL West rivals have combined for fewer than nine runs just once this series and both offenses have flirted with double-digits.
Still, I'm playing it safe here. The Astros have so much experience and so much talent on both sides of the plate that I'm more than comfortable taking them on the moneyline and banking on a World Series rematch.
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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.