MLB Best Bets for Today: Cleveland Guardians & Houston Astros | Thursday, August 25th

MLB Best Bets for Today: Back Triston McKenzie and the Guardians to take care of business

Tonight, MLB teams will continue their current series. This is the time of year when these teams really need to focus on winning to improve playoff chances. There are a lot of teams on the cusp of locking down their spots, and this nine-game slate involves at least 11 teams with postseason hopes. If you want betting action on today's games, you've come to the right place.

Below, you will find two of the best value bets for today's slate of MLB games.

Bet #1: Cleveland Guardians F5 ML (-120)

"Day baseball in Seattle. Can't argue with that." - CleGuardians

The Cleveland Guardians will continue their West Coast road trip as they travel to take on the Seattle Mariners. Cleveland is coming off a confidence-boosting 7-0, shutout over the San Diego Padres. The Guardians have been a good road team this season, with a record of 34-31 away from Cleveland.

They will send Triston McKenzie to the mound for this contest, and he has been pitching very well as of late. In his last three starts, McKenzie has yet to allow more than 2 runs to opposing offenses.

The Guardians offense will face southpaw Marco Gonzalez, who has given up three or more runs in five out of his last seven outings. Cleveland's offense ranks inside the top 10 in the MLB in many important categories, so they're firing on all cylinders.

The Guardians will look to Jose Ramirez and Steven Kwan to help produce runs tonight, which is something they've done all season long. The key to victory for Cleveland is to give McKenzie run support early, so he can take risks in the strike zone to keep his pitch count low.

Bet #2: Houston Astros/Minnesota Twins No Run First Inning (NRFI) (-115)

"Just keep winning." - Astros

In the first two games of the series between the Minnesota Twins and Houston Astros, there hasn't been much offense in the first inning other than a Jose Altuve home run last night.

There are two very capable starting pitchers in this contest: Chris Archer and Luis Garcia. Both offenses rank just outside the top 10 in the MLB, so they are very capable of putting up runs. However, we're relying on these pitchers to get the job done and have a clean first inning of work.

Garcia has faced the Twins' lineup once this season, allowing no runs through five innings. Archer has faced the Astros once as well, but he didn't see the same success as his opponent. It seems Archer has turned his performances around, given that he hasn't given up more than two runs in any of his last five starts. We're not asking too much here, just a clean first inning. NRFI Nation stand up!