2022 MLB Betting Preview: An Arizona Diamondbacks Upset and Four More Opening Day Predictions

If Major League Baseball had a self-aware sense of humor, the 2022 Opening Day slogan would be “Better Late Than Never.” 

It didn’t look very promising for most of the 99-day owners lockout, but there will be a season — and a 162-game one at that, scheduled to begin Thursday afternoon, seven days later than originally planned.

Here’s a glance at five interesting tilts for Thursday and Friday, all with odds as of April 6 at DraftKings.

Guardians (-120) over Royals

With Bobby Witt Jr. joining a lineup featuring the defending big league co-home run champ (Salvador Perez) and stolen base champ (Whit Merrifield), there’s a pretty good chance the Royals are going to be the better team over six months than the Guardians, whose second-best offensive player last season was Amed Rosario. But in an Opening Day duel of former Cy Young Award winners, the edge should lie with Shane Bieber, looking to bounce back from an injury-shortened 2021, over Zack Greinke, who is a feel-good story coming home but not quite the ace of his youth at age 38.

Cardinals (-210) over Pirates

It’s nice to wax poetic about Opening Day and how everyone has hope, even those teams who need to mine a tradition-rich past in order to make everyone forget a bleak present. But then there’s the reality that the Cardinals’ ageless wonder Adam Wainwright has made 41 career starts against the Pirates and the only member of the Pirates’ projected season-opening rotation to make more than 41 big league STARTS is Jose Quintana, who has a 5.13 ERA since the start of the 2019 season. 

Diamondbacks (+140) over Padres

Speaking of waxing poetic about accolade-filled pasts instead of gazing at cloudy futures…the union of Madison Bumgarner and the Diamondbacks hasn’t gone quite as either party hoped. Bumgarner, who looked to be on a Hall of Fame track in his 20s, has gone 8-14 with a 5.07 ERA in 35 starts the last two seasons for the Diamondbacks, who are miles behind Bumgarner’s former team, the Giants, and the Dodgers as well as the ever-interesting Padres in terms of NL West relevance. But what’s Opening Day if not an opportunity to envision an aging star authoring a throwback performance?

Red Sox (+135) over Yankees

While the weather has pushed this to Friday, the very first game of the season — and the Yankees’ first game since a wild card loss to the Red Sox last October — will provide an immediate opportunity to evaluate a couple of fascinating off-seasons. The Yankees went for bulk (Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falafa and Anthony Rizzo) instead of prestige (Freddie Freeman and/or Carlos Correa) while the Red Sox mostly stood pat aside from the post-lockout addition of ex-Rockies star Trevor Story, who hit .303 with an OPS of .972 at Coors Field and .241 with an OPS of .752 everywhere else. Go with Nathan Eovaldi, fresh off the season in which he finally put it all together, over Gerrit Cole in a result that will absolutely not be met with overreaction in either New York or Boston.

Mariners (-105) over Twins

The Mariners are sending reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray to the mound in his Seattle debut against Twins rookie Joe Ryan, who will be making his sixth big league start and is the least-experienced pitcher to start on Opening Day since Jose Guzman for the Rangers in 1986. (Tying this all together: The Rangers’ third game that season was started by Bobby Witt SENIOR in his major league debut) Ryan, who posted a 2.67 ERA in three minor league seasons, is a tantalizing prospect. But it’s hard not to go with Ray and the all-in Mariners in the season opener.