MLB Odds, Predictions & Picks: Our 2 Best Bets for Dodgers vs. Braves, Athletics vs. Rockies (Saturday, June 5)

It's a full day of baseball as all 30 teams across the league are in action, including the heated Red Sox-Yankees rivalry, and a pitching duel at Petco Park.

Our staff is turning their attentions elsewhere, however, for better value. Check out both of our staff's best bets for Saturday's games below.

MLB Odds & Picks

Dodgers vs. Braves

Kenny Ducey: This is one of those situations where one team would be a decently large favorite if this were played at a different venue. The Dodgers are the better team here, but we get close to a pick ‘em based on the fact that this is in Atlanta.

Sure, Clayton Kershaw has had a couple of clunkers over the last month, but I’ll take this Dodgers offense over the Braves’ any day of the week. A key number here is the Dodgers’ 10.5% swinging strike rate over the past two weeks, which is the fourth-best in the league over that span. Uncle Charlie Morton has been leaning on whiffs lately with 23 strikeouts in three starts (spanning 18 innings), and I don’t expect him to be able to replicate that against a Dodgers offense that’s getting healthy and also making a hefty amount of contact.

Atlanta’s offense has been mired in a slump ever since Marcell Ozuna’s injury, so I see pretty favorable conditions for Kershaw to shove here. There’s also the element of the league’s investigation into foreign substances; Morton’s spin rates have been off the charts late in his career ever since he went to Houston, where Brent Strom — who Trevor Bauer’s called out for helping pitchers get an edge — is the pitching coach. He seems like a prime candidate to stop using sticky substances, but of course there’s no way of knowing what will happen. It just makes me like the Dodgers even more.

Athletics vs. Rockies

Collin Whitchurch: I hate betting on the Rockies. The Rockies' win total under was my favorite bet of the preseason, and while they've been as bad as advertised, their home performance combined with the Diamondbacks' calamitous first two months, aren't even in last in the NL West. So, why am I betting on the Rockies for the second straight night after getting burned by them on Friday?

Well, again, they're home. And the Rockies are a respectable 19-13 at home compared to an incomprehensible 4-22 on the road. They're a flat-out better team at home, and they're also a flat-out better team against lefties, with a league-average 100 wRC+ against southpaws compared to a worst-in-the-league 69 wRC+ against righties.

Cole Irvin, you might have figured by now, is a lefty. He's not a very good one, either, and he's allowed at least four earned runs in each of his last three starts. Kyle Freeland has more walks than strikeouts through two starts since returning from the injured list, but Freeland's first two starts also came on the road. He hasn't gotten a taste of whatever voodoo magic the Rockies put in the Coors Field water just yet.

So we're backing the Rockies here as home underdogs. Again. Surely a team that is better at home and better against lefties has a better chance to pick up the win than the 46.5 percent implied odds of the +115 line. I would bet the Rockies at any number with a plus in front of it.