MLB Bet or Fade June 30: Webb and Wheeler Grace the Mound
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Rainman M.
- June 30, 2025
Top MLB Pick: Giants-Diamondbacks Under 8 (-105) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
Top sportsbooks have released their betting odds for tonight’s baseball action, and four games, in particular, interest me as worth investing in:
- Padres vs. Phillies
- Reds vs. Red Sox
- Giants vs. Diamondbacks
- Royals vs. Mariners
Let’s dive into these matchups with sharp analysis before you lock in your bets.
San Diego Padres vs. Philadelphia Phillies
Monday, June 30, 2025 – 06:35 PM EDT at Citizens Bank Park
San Diego’s Dire Injury Situation
Matt Waldron starts for the Padres tonight.
He is not starting because he deserves a spot in a professional team’s rotation.
Instead, he is lucky that San Diego has four different starting pitchers on the injury list. The Padres lack healthy alternatives at the starting pitcher position.
To make this point clearer, Waldron is really bad — so much so that he can’t even find success in the minors. In 22.1 Triple-A innings, his ERA is 5.24.
Waldron vs. Phillies Batters
Some minor league pitchers do find greater success in the majors when batters are unfamiliar with them.
But Waldron is not one of those pitchers, because the Phillies already know him well and have constructed a strong track record against him.
Collectively, they hit .297 and slug .486 with Waldron on the mound.
If you are into hitter props, consider investing in Bryson Stott, who is 4-for-6 with three doubles in his career against Waldron.
Wheeler and Dealin’
Philadelphia’s starting pitcher advantage could not be more immense with the elite Zack Wheeler taking the mound.
Wheeler’s 2.55 ERA is not even a sufficient reflection of his current form. He enters tonight’s game having allowed a combined total of three earned runs in his last four games.
The Padres will be powerless tonight. Collectively, they hit .163 and slug .239 against Wheeler.
Parlay Leg 1: Phillies ML (-218) at BetOnline
Kansas City Royals vs. Seattle Mariners
Monday, June 30, 2025 – 09:40 PM EDT at T-Mobile Park
Michael Wacha in Seattle
Kansas City starts Michael Wacha tonight.
Wacha has a better ERA than Seattle’s opposing starting pitcher, but that doesn’t give Wacha a good outlook. This ERA disparity belies the fact that Wacha struggles in some venues.
His historical struggles, specifically in Seattle create a strong outlook for the Mariners’ lineup. In Seattle, his ERA is 6.75 in four career starts.
Five different Mariners batters slug at least .500 against Wacha, so there will be plenty of run support for Seattle’s starter.
Underrated George Kirby
Seattle starts George Kirby tonight, who won’t actually need much run support at all, despite what his ERA says.
Kirby’s ERA is as high as it is because he struggled in May. This is why ERA is often a misleading statistic: it accounts for the entire season when the baseball season is very long.
How Kirby performed back in May is irrelevant to his current form. He has allowed two earned runs or fewer against four of his last five opponents.
Kirby vs. Royals Batters
In the one exception, Kirby struggled against the Cubs. This exception should in no way frighten us because the Cubs have one of the best lineups in baseball, ranking second in runs per game.
Conversely, the Royals rank dead-last in runs per game. Their offensive production is regularly negligible.
Kirby already loves facing them: collectively, they hit .182 and slug .273 against him.
Any Concerns?
Skeptics have one last straw to grasp: they might be concerned with the state of Seattle’s bullpen given the team’s recent slew of extra-inning games.
But the Mariners’ bullpen has a fantastic outlook tonight with Gabe Speier, Matt Brash, and Andres Munoz all fresh. These relievers yield, respectively, ERAs of 2.93, 0.00, and 1.16.
With stronger pitching and hitting, the Mariners are worth a full-game investment, making them a great parlay partner along with Wheeler’s Phillies.
Parlay Leg 2: Mariners ML (-155) at BetOnline
The Parlay
- Phillies ML (-218)
- Mariners ML (-155)
MLB Pick: Two-Legged Parlay (+163) at BetOnline
Cincinnati Reds vs. Boston Red Sox
Monday, June 30, 2025 – 07:10 PM EDT at Fenway Park
The Amazing Chase Burns
Chase Burns starts for Cincinnati tonight.
Burns, who was picked second in the 2024 MLB draft, is Cincinnati’s top pitching prospect.
He got to show off his skillset when he made his professional debut against the mighty Yankees last week.
Impressively, he struck out the first five batters he faced. He is the first pitcher to do this in 64 years. His stuff really is that good.
Primarily, he relies on a high-velo fastball that, in addition to averaging 98 mph, has a lot of spin.
His second-favorite pitch is his slider, which he commands well, as evident in his ability to place it in different parts of the strike zone, which heat maps illustrate.
Moreover, he has developed his changeup and curveball, which are effective weapons for him against lefties and which create a strong change-of-pace, relative to his heater, that keeps hitters off-balance.
While Burns’ ERA was poor in his first start, his 2.49 FIP (like ERA but factors out fielding) shows how well he truly performed.
Expect his ERA to plummet tonight, in alignment with his demonstrated ability to perform very well, against a Red Sox lineup that has generally been struggling and that matches up significantly worse against his pitches than the Yankees did.
Boston’s Elite Starter
Garrett Crochet starts for the Red Sox tonight.
Crochet’s ERA is fantastic, and yet he has been playing even better lately. He enters tonight’s game havving allowed a combined total of two earned runs in his last three starts.
During this three-start stretch, he even thrived against a Yankees lineup that ranks second against his favorite pitches from lefties. Now he faces a Reds lineup that ranks 25th with a .361 slugging rate against his favorite pitches from lefties.
MLB Pick: First-Five Under 3.5 (+102) at BetOnline
San Francisco Giants vs. Arizona Diamondbacks
Monday, June 30, 2025 – 09:40 PM EDT at Chase Field
Arizona’s Underrated Starter
Ryne Nelson starts for the Diamondbacks tonight.
While Nelson doesn’t get the respect that other Arizona starters receive, he deserves it when he’s pitching in his home venue.
At home this year, he is yielding a 2.25 ERA. This ERA is as high as it is because he struggled in the season-opener against the Cubs, who also slammed him in Wrigley Field, with their second-ranked lineup.
Nelson’s Soft Test
Nelson gets a soft test today in the form of a Giants lineup that simply lacks talent.
The Giants acquired Rafael Devers because they knew that they need hitters. But he is just one player.
They enter today’s game having scored a combined total of five runs in their last three games.
Whereas they are struggling, Nelson is thriving at home, where he has allowed zero runs combined in his last two starts. In between these two home starts, he allowed zero runs in four innings of relief work at home.
The Elite Logan Webb
San Francisco starts Logan Webb tonight.
Webb is reliable: he has limited each of his last five opponents to two earned runs or fewer.
Arizona’s hitters can’t be expected to disrupt Webb’s ongoing streak of success. Collectively, they bat .198 and slug .294 against him.
Full-Game Play
The Giants own baseball’s top-ranked bullpen.
While Arizona does not, the Giants just struggled to hit even the White Sox. Their ongoing hitting woes thus negate any concern about Arizona’s bullpen.
With Nelson anyhow able to go six innings, the Diamondbacks will be able to focus on deploying their best relievers, such as Shelby Miller with his 2.18 ERA, Kyle Backhus with his 1.23 ERA, and Juan Morillo with his 1.00 June ERA.
Season-long bullpen ERAs are misleading because they belie the number of quality relievers that a team will have available in a given game and because they get inflated by games where a starter struggles and a bullpen has to work more innings.
With both starters thriving, the full-game under will easily hit.
MLB Pick: Under 8 (-105) at BetOnline
*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.
