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Opening Day of the 2024 MLB Season gave us a first look at the potential outlook of all 30 teams for the rest of the season. While it is still too early to tell the potential for the remainder of the season, there is a solid indication of early bets such as NRFI where some teams continue their first-inning scoring drought from last year. There are also going to be some great pitching opportunities with some playing on new teams. Look for some great early NRFI bets to come from DraftKings Sportsbook.
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Game one of the matchup between the Miami Marlins and the Pittsburgh Pirates became a high-scoring game early, but not until after the first inning. This continues the trend of the Marlins and Pirates remaining quiet in the first inning from last year.
Pittsburgh was the third-worst team in the league in accounting for runs in the first inning (.43). Miami, despite a successful season, was not a highly efficient team in the first inning either as they were ranked 24th in the league in NRFI (.44).
The pitching matchups for game two of the series is projected to be much harder to account for runs, especially in the first inning. Pittsburgh will be starting Martin Perez, who is the 5th most experienced starting pitcher for the World Series-winning Texas Rangers last year. Press accounted for an ERA of 4.45 last season.
The Marlins lost a key number of starting pitchers from last year. They feel confident in the ability of Puk to help carry the load for the Marlins. While he had great moments last year, he will need to be more efficient as opposed to his 3.97 ERA in 56.2 innings pitch last year. He has come along fast, however, as the Marlins have placed full confidence in him.
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The first game between the Cleveland Guardians and the Oakland Athletics didn’t feature a run in the first inning of Opening Day. Don’t expect anything to change with these two teams going into game two of the series of the season.
It was the Guardians that took game one of the series on the road versus the Athletics with an 8-0 score. The Guardians didn’t get on the scoreboard until the second inning. They scored large bulks of their runs in between different innings with five coming in the fourth inning and two in the ninth inning.
The Athletics are likely going to have a hard time trying to establish a rhythm early in the game with Logan Allen, one of their top returning starting pitchers from last season. Allen accounted for an ERA of 3.81 in 2023.
The Athletics, on the other hand, are putting their full confidence in Ross Stripling, who was the fifth-best starting pitcher for the San Francisco Giants (5.36 ERA) last season. Oakland feels that Striplings’ more assertive role and more playing time will result in a better performance.
Last season, both the Athletics and the Guardians were among the worst teams in the league in scoring a run in the first inning. The Guardians were ranked 27th in the league in NRFI (0.43) while the Athletics were ranked 25th in the league (0.44).
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Michael Hanich is a sports journalist/analyst with a wide variety of experience in the newspaper and digital field. He has a love for all sports. The leagues that he covers are College Football, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, College Basketball (men’s and women’s), the MLB, Lacrosse, Volleyball, and the WNBA.
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