Something just hits differently with day baseball.
Whether you're sitting out in the bleachers on a Sunday afternoon or switching back and forth between a spreadsheet and the game on your computer at work, you can be profiting off that day's ball, too.
Below, we've compiled a team and player MLB Day Games Betting Report to help your day baseball bets. All the data collected below is for 2023 day MLB games, which are characterized as games with a start time before 5 pm ET:
Best Day Game MLB Teams
| Team | Profit ($) | Games | Wins | Losses | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nationals | +$1600.91 | 57 | 29 | 28 | 50.9 |
| Orioles | +$1154.97 | 49 | 31 | 18 | 63.3 |
| Brewers | +$593.66 | 56 | 32 | 24 | 57.1 |
| Angels | +$438.94 | 41 | 23 | 18 | 56.1 |
| Tigers | +$364.99 | 63 | 30 | 33 | 47.6 |
The Nationals are surprisingly great under the day-game sun. Despite a .460 win rate overall, the Nats are over .500 during the day.
Even after trading a day-game hero like Jeimer Candelario at the trade deadline, the Nationals have kept up the afternoon success. It's coming on the back of some great performances by catcher Keibert Ruiz and infielder CJ Abrams. Both young bats are hitting .300 during the day with OPS over .830. Despite being more of a speed/contact guy, Abrams has seven homers in just 45 day games.
CJ Abrams makes it back-to-back homers and the boo birds are out in the Bronx pic.twitter.com/acJZYU4Shj
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) August 24, 2023
Worst Day Game MLB Teams
| Team | Profit ($) | Games | Wins | Losses | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athletics | -$2984.0 | 54 | 9 | 45 | 16.7 |
| Padres | -$1306.17 | 48 | 21 | 27 | 43.8 |
| Mets | -$1171.77 | 48 | 21 | 27 | 43.8 |
| Royals | -$902.36 | 55 | 19 | 36 | 34.5 |
| Rockies | -$552.38 | 50 | 19 | 31 | 38.0 |
There aren't many big surprises with the worst day teams, as it's many of the league's worst teams overall. However, Oakland is somehow even worse in day games than usual. If the A's were to only play day games this season, they'd be on pace for under 30 wins. Woof. I certainly hope you haven't been betting on Oakland during the afternoon.
Best Day Game Hitters
| Name | Games | HR | At Bats | Runs | RBI | Hits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matt Olson | 44 | 19.0 | 174.0 | 37.0 | 52.0 | 49.0 |
| Shohei Ohtani | 40 | 18.0 | 142.0 | 39.0 | 40.0 | 50.0 |
| Kyle Schwarber | 53 | 14.0 | 202.0 | 32.0 | 42.0 | 36.0 |
| Spencer Torkelson | 63 | 14.0 | 229.0 | 33.0 | 37.0 | 50.0 |
| Pete Alonso | 45 | 14.0 | 164.0 | 24.0 | 31.0 | 34.0 |
Most of the top day-game hitters are just the best bats in baseball. So, let's go a little off the board to highlight a day-game hero.
But, one non-elite hitter that stands out here is Tigers 1B Spencer Torkelson. A former No. 1 draft pick, Tork has all the potential in the world at the plate, but the run production seems to be only showing up during the day. Check out his Day vs Night counting stats:
Tork During Day: 60 GP, 14 HR, 35 RBI
Night: 72 GP, 10 HR, 34 RBI
Best Day Game Starting Pitchers
| Name | Day Starts | ERA | BAA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blake Snell | 8 | 1.23 | .191 |
| Braxton Garrett | 9 | 1.96 | .219 |
| Sonny Gray | 10 | 2.02 | .184 |
Blake Snell's having a great season, rocking a 2.73 ERA overall. But, under the San Diego sun, he takes his game to a whole other level. Snell leads all of baseball with a 1.23 day ERA allowing just six earned runs across eight starts. It's bucking a career trend for him though, as Snell owns a lower career ERA during the night (3.17) compared to the day (3.51).
