Hello and good Friday to you. I love good news and Friday generally is good news in and of itself for many people. Here, under the Matt Snyder byline on CBS Sports, Friday means it’s time for another installment of picks, or, as I like to call this little exercise, Friday Night lines. There’s a full slate of 15 games on Friday and they all come at night except one with what’s expected to be very hitter-friendly weather. Hint, hint. The lines are from DraftKings for FridayCorbin Burnes to record win (-130) At this point, it’s more than clear that the Rockies are going to be historically bad this season. It’s just a matter of how historic their futility gets. We might as well wager against them as it’s happening. We shouldn’t play the moneyline here because it’s far too juiced at an absurd -395, and the run line is a little juiced as well (-1.5 at -198). We’ll dive a little bit deeper and grab Burnes to get the victory. He’s done it in each of his last two starts and those came against the Mets and Dodgers. There’s a bit less resistance here with the Road Rockies (they are a pitiful 2-20 away from Coors). We just need the Diamondbacks to have the lead when Burnes departs the game and not lose it. Against this Rockies team, that won’t be an issue. MacKenzie Gore over 6.5 K (-125) The Orioles rank dead last in the majors with a .179 batting average against lefties. They rank dead last in the majors with a .511 OPS against lefties. The Nationals are starting a lefty Friday in MacKenzie Gore. Gore leads the majors with 75 strikeouts this season in 52⅔ innings. He averages 8.33 strikeouts per start. His road ERA is much worse than at home, but his strikeout rate is essentially the same (12.8 K/9 at home vs. 12.9 K/9 on the road). He faced the Orioles on April 24 and struck out eight. He’s gone over 6.5 strikeouts in seven of his nine starts. The only fear here is that it almost seems too easy? Why isn’t the line higher? Why isn’t there more juice? It isn’t fishy enough to drive me away. Gore will get to seven strikeouts against what has become a hapless Orioles team. Home run play(s): Grab your Chicago players Wrigley Field is notoriously a park with multiple personalities. If the weather is cold and the wind is blowing in, it’s as extreme a pitcher’s park as there is. When it’s warm and the wind is blowing out, well, you get things like the Cubs and D-backs combining for 21 runs in 1.5 innings. The weather report for Friday in Chicago in the 1 o’clock hour (the game starts at 1:20 locally) is 82 degrees with 18 mile per hour winds blowing out of south. That is directly out to left field. It is expected to remain in the 80s all game with the wind 18-19 m.p.h. in a similar direction. The White Sox are sending Shane Smith to the mound and though he’s only given up one homer so far this season in over 43 innings, he’s allowed fly balls 29.4% of the time and fly balls can kill you on days like this. The Cubs start rookie Cade Horton who allowed a three-run shot to Brett Baty in his MLB debut on Saturday. The bullpens will both be involved, too, and neither are good. Simply: This is a very good spot to use those free home run plays you’ve stocked up. Righties like Seiya Suzuki, Dansby Swanson, Luis Robert, Andrew Benintendi, Andrew Vaughn, Carson Kelly and Miguel Amaya work, but feel free to run with lefties Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker, too. If forced to pick one, I’ll run with Swanson (+295). He has five homers in the last 15 games and hits better at home. For a longer shot, Nico Hoerner has zero home runs on the season, but he’s hit a few deep flies in Wrigley recently and the weather lines up well for his first homer. He’s +1000. Futures play: Aaron Judge to hit .400+ (+7500) No, I do not think Aaron Judge is going to hit .400 this season. Did you know he hit .357 in his last 124 games last year and is hitting .412 so far this season, giving him a .373 batting average in his last 167 games? That isn’t that far off. It certainly doesn’t seem like he’s going to slow down in watching him hit right now. Also consider how much more he’s going to start walking as we get into the summer and teams don’t wanna watch him take them deep. And, of course, there’s no playing time component on this bet. That is to say that if he’s hitting over .400 and gets hurt, the tickets cash all the same. Again, I don’t think Judge is going to hit .400, but the +7500 is so enticing I don’t see why something like $10 would hurt here. It isn’t exactly Kevin Malone’s John Mellencamp wins an Oscar bet, which was 10,000 to 1, but the 750-1 odds here feel worth a small shot.

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