After a massive slate of games on Mother’s Day, baseball has a quiet Monday with only six games on tap. Still, there are a number of betting lines ripe for the picking.

The difference in baseball compared to other sports is how the spreads (run lines) are measured. Unlike other sports where the size of a spread can vary, baseball’s spreads are defaulted to 1.5 runs, with the odds being juiced one way or another. This makes targeting games before all of the odds are up a bit easier, especially for the sake of these articles.

Below are two of my favorite bets for Monday.

San Diego Padres at Colorado Rockies

The pick: Rockies +1.5 (good until -110)

Targeting games in Coors Field is a roller coaster, as this ballpark produces some of the highest-scoring games in baseball. That said, I have confidence that both teams will pile on the runs here and have a bit more confidence in the Rockies to keep this close, as they’ve averaged over four runs per game over their last four games.

It also helps that the Padres have been a rather underwhelming offense and go up against Jon Gray, who’s shown an ability to keep it together more this season than in years prior. He’s posting his best strikeout-per-nine-inning mark since 2019, his lowest HR/9 mark since 2017, and a career-best 3.06 ERA. If he can keep this Padres’ offense in check, this should be a one-score game or a game that leans in the Rockies’ favor, making anything better than -110 here a great value.

Texas Rangers at San Francisco Giants

The pick: Giants ML (good until -120)

Early indications around the sports betting world forecast the Rangers to be a favorite here. While we don’t have an official line yet, that, to me, would be a mistake. The Giants have been one of the early season surprises this year, sitting atop the NL West with a 20-14 record.

While Kyle Gibson has had an impressive start to the season for the Rangers, he’s still allowing the highest fly-ball rate of his career (29.6%) and his SIERA (quantifies a pitcher’s performance by eliminating factors out of their control, such as errors) of 4.11 being over a run higher than his ERA (2.40) could indicate regression on the horizon. With how hot the Giants are and the mediocrity Gibson has shown throughout his career, potentially getting the home team as an underdog here is a great bet.