Los Angeles Dodgers vs San Francisco Giants Betting Picks

I've had the Dodgers on the runline in both games of this series. I cashed Friday's 2-0 shutout behind Tarik Skubal and came up a run short in yesterday's 4-3 win. For today, the more useful number is what those two games produced: nine runs combined across 18 innings. Los Angeles has its bye locked up and is running a bullpen game in the finale. San Francisco counters with Carson Seymour, a reliever who has made 24 appearances this season without a start, so the Giants will cover most of nine innings with their pen too. A bullpen game can leak when a manager is protecting his best arms, and that's the honest risk. The Dodgers' staff still ranks fourth in ERA. The Giants have lost four straight and scored 35 runs over their last ten games, and they rank 26th in runs per game on the season. This is the right game for the UNDER this afternoon.

I had the Dodgers on the runline against San Francisco last night, and a 2-0 shutout was enough to cash it. That makes six straight wins for Los Angeles over the Giants, each by at least two runs. San Francisco's offense is the reason. The Giants have scored 16 runs across their last seven games, have lost three straight and seven of their last ten, and rank 22nd in OPS. Blake Snell gets the ball today with a 1.86 ERA and no home runs allowed in 38 2/3 innings. He left his last start after one inning with groin tightness, and an MRI showed no structural damage, so a short outing is the realistic plan. That doesn't worry me. The Dodgers bullpen ranks tenth in ERA, and the lineup behind it is second in baseball in OPS. Matt Wilkinson held Los Angeles scoreless over five innings last Sunday, and the Dodgers still won by two. Los Angeles has the division wrapped up, but this Giants lineup hasn't given anyone a reason to rest easy. Los Angeles wins on the runline this afternoon.

I had the Dodgers against this same Giants team last week, laying a heavy number on the moneyline, and Los Angeles pulled away in the middle innings for a comfortable 6-1 finish. Not much has changed for San Francisco since. The Giants are 32 games back and playing out a lost season, and tonight they're turning to Yunior Marte, who has 19 innings of big-league work and a 4.66 ERA to match. Los Angeles counters with Tarik Skubal, a legitimate 2.85 ERA and one of the better arms in the sport right now. Los Angeles has dropped two straight, but the division's been wrapped up since September 17, and with the ace back on the mound tonight, that skid says more about a lull than tonight's matchup. This is the kind of mismatch- a shaky arm against a stacked lineup with its best pitcher starting- where laying the extra run makes sense instead of settling for the moneyline alone. Los Angeles wins this one going away on the runline tonight.

I had the Dodgers on the moneyline last night and it wasn't competitive, this same Giants team got run out of its own building. Yes, Los Angeles is doing this without Shohei Ohtani, who's on the injured list, and that's worth saying plainly rather than burying it. But look at what San Francisco is missing on the other side: Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, Matt Chapman and Logan Webb are all out, which means the Giants are sending a lineup and a pitching staff missing most of the players who'd make this a game in the first place. Los Angeles is 95-60, one of the best records in baseball, on a three-game winning streak, and even a shorthanded version of this roster has enough talent to bury a team this banged up. Matt Wilkinson has all of nineteen innings of major league experience, and he's walking into a lineup that's averaging close to five runs a night even with its best player sidelined. San Francisco is 64-91 with nothing left to play for, and the roster on the field this afternoon looks worse than that record. Go with Los Angeles on the moneyline this afternoon.

I had the Dodgers on the moneyline and the total last night, and it wasn't competitive for long. Los Angeles led by just a run into the eighth before pulling away, scoring five in that inning and rolling to an 8-2 win over this same San Francisco club. Tonight's the rematch, and if anything the mound matchup tilts even further in the Dodgers' favor. Tarik Skubal takes the ball off maybe his best stretch since the August trade that brought him to Los Angeles, a 2.70 ERA on the season and, last time out, nine strikeouts and no earned runs allowed across seven innings. San Francisco still hasn't named a starter for tonight, and that uncertainty sits on top of a pitching staff that's already allowed more than four and a half runs a game as a team this season. The Giants are 64-92 with nothing left to play for in the season's final stretch, while the Dodgers sit at 94-61, one of the best records in baseball, with a lineup averaging just under five runs a night. Skubal shutting down San Francisco's bats doesn't work against tonight's total; it works for it. The runs in this one will come from the Dodgers' own lineup against a shaky Giants staff, the same formula that produced eight runs by itself last night against a total that opened well above where tonight's number sits. Take Los Angeles on the moneyline and the OVER tonight, too.