MLB Bet or Fade July 21: The A’s Are Tonight’s Top Dog

Rainman M.
July 21, 2025

It’s a loaded day on the diamond, and I’ve got my eye on four matchups that offer serious betting value: Yankees vs. Blue Jays, Red Sox vs. Phillies, White Sox vs. Rays, and Athletics vs. Rangers.

With odds live and lines moving at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review), let’s break down the matchups and uncover the smartest plays on today’s MLB slate.

Boston Red Sox vs. Philadelphia Phillies

Monday, July 21, 2025 – 06:45 PM EDT at Citizens Bank Park

Starting Pitcher Mismatch

We get an immense disparity in starting pitcher quality with Walker Buehler starting for Boston and Zack Wheeler starting for Philadelphia.

Buehler struggles to find the strike zone and walks over four batters per game. Because he, of course, needs to throw strikes so that he doesn’t accumulate even more walks, he ends up leaving pitches in dangerous parts of the strike zone.

As a result, he also gives up nearly two home runs per game. His fastball is a major culprit: it’s his favorite pitch to throw, yet batters slug .740 against it.

Philadelphia, which has one of baseball’s best offenses especially at home, won’t even have to do much with ace Zack Wheeler on the mound.

Wheeler has allowed one run or fewer in six of his last seven starts. A Boston lineup with more strikeouts than hits against him won’t pose a challenge.

Parlay Leg 1: Phillies First-Five ML (-230)

Chicago White Sox vs. Tampa Bay Rays

Monday, July 21, 2025 – 07:35 PM EDT at George M. Steinbrenner Field

Dream Matchup for Tampa Bay’s Lineup

The Rays can’t wait to face Sean Burke, Chicago’s starter tonight.

There are two features in Burke’s pitching that make the Rays a nightmare matchup for him.

One, he relies heavily on a fastball-slider-curveball combo. Two, he is a very heavy flyball-inducing pitcher.

Regarding this first feature, his tendency — that is evident in heat maps — to leave pitches in the middle of the plate makes him vulnerable to struggle mightily on any given night, as when a Toronto lineup that doesn’t normally hit his favorite pitches well recently slammed him for six runs.

Tampa Bay does hit his favorite pitches well, ranking third with a .466 slugging rate against them from righties.

Secondly, Tampa Bay’s outlook is solid because it is as its best against fly-ball-inducing pitchers. The Rays slug .434 against them.

Tampa Bay’s Superior Starter

Shane Baz starts for the Rays tonight.

There is no doubt that he has solid stuff: he relies heavily on a fastball that averages 96.8 mph and has great spin.

His second-favorite pitch is a knuckle curve with a ton of spin that batters slug .283 against.

With pitches like these, he just needed to elevate the quality of his command.

This is what he’s been doing. Whereas, earlier in the season, he struggled to avoid walking batters, he has walked no more than two batters in any of his last four starts.

He’ll be able to throw strikes with maximal confidence against a White Sox lineup that ranks 29^th with a .345 slugging rate against his favorite pitches from righties.

Parlay Leg 2: Rays First-Five ML (-202)

The Parlay

Phillies First-Five ML (-230)
Rays First-Five ML (-202)

Two-Legged Parlay (+115)

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New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays

Monday, July 21, 2025 – 07:07 PM EDT at Rogers Centre

Profiting From Rodon’s Reputation

Carlos Rodon starts for the Yankees tonight.

With both lineups being very good — they rank top-ten in run production — it will take a strong reputation from both starting pitchers for oddsmakers to want to hang an 8 on the over/under.

Rodon’s terrific season contributes to the fact that there is a low total for this game.

We can profit from Rodon’s reputation and generally strong success by finding games where he is sure to struggle.

Tonight presents one of those games because he is pitching in Toronto.

In the Blue Jays’ venue, Rodon suffers a 7.11 ERA in four career starts.

Toronto’s Starter Tonight

With Kevin Gausman starting for the Blue Jays tonight in Toronto, we get a rematch of the July 1 affair in which both starting pitchers yielded two earned runs.

The advanced metrics indicate that they actually performed worse in that matchup. One concrete indication of this reality is that they yielded hard contact at a very high rate.

As Toronto’s hitters will do to Rodon, Yankees batters will hit Gausman hard tonight.

In Gausman’s penultimate start against the Yankees, he allowed six earned runs.

Indeed, given their track record, Yankees batters must be expected to thrive against Gausman. Collectively, they slug .478 with him on the mound.

Therefore, while the last time these pitchers dueled was tame, we should expect an explosion of runs tonight. Let’s take the First-Five Over 4 at -120.

Yankees/Blue Jays First-Five Over 4 (-120)

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Athletics vs. Texas Rangers

Monday, July 21, 2025 – 08:05 PM EDT at Globe Life Field

Favored Jack Leiter

Jack Leiter starts for the Rangers tonight.

Leiter’s awful command, as evident in his exorbitant walk rate, and his bad stuff, as evident in the very high rate at which he yields hard contact, make Texas an unreliable favorite with him on the mound.

Indeed, the Rangers have lost the last three games in which they were favored with him starting.

As heat maps show for all of his favorite pitches, he can’t steer clear of the middle of the strike zone.

An Athletics lineup that ranks third with a .448 slugging rate against his favorite pitches from righties is going to pounce.

Folks talk about Leiter’s talent as second overall pick in the 2021 draft, but he simply isn’t ready to convert his raw talent to on-field success on any consistent basis. He yielded an ERA of below 4.91 to one of his last six opponents, a Seattle team that is at its worst against fly ball-inducing pitchers.

The A’s have a strong outlook tonight also because they are at their best, with a .465 slugging rate, against fly ball-inducing pitchers.

The Top Dog A’s

The Athletics are tonight’s best underdog because, in addition to hitting Leiter hard, they will get a strong start from Jacob Lopez tonight.

Totaling seven runs in three post-All-Star Break games, Texas’s bats have been cold to start the second half of the season.

The Rangers will continue to struggle against left-handed pitching, especially. They are one of three teams to slug below .340 against southpaws.

More specific to tonight’s game, they rank second-to-last with a .337 slugging rate against Lopez’s favorite pitches from righties. I’m riding with the A’s First-Five ML at +107.

Athletics First-Five ML (+107)

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*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.