Dodgers vs. Red Sox prediction, odds, time: 2026 MLB picks for 'Sunday Night Baseball' by proven model — SkimNews
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- Los Angeles Dodgers (69-42) made a blockbuster trade to acquire Tarik Skubal early Sunday morning, with Skubal slated to debut next week as the club tries to avoid a sweep by Boston.
- Boston Red Sox (59-51) have gone 22-4 since the start of July and won the first two games of this series, yet are +156 underdogs on the moneyline for Sunday's finale.
- SportsLine's projection model, which simulates every MLB game 10,000 times and entered Week 19 on a 39-23 run on top-rated MLB picks, is backing Under 8.5 (-115) after the Red Sox went under in seven of their past eight games and the Dodgers in three of their last four.
- Jake Bennett (6-4, 2.74 ERA) starts for Boston against Emmet Sheehan (4-7, 4.95 ERA) for Los Angeles, with the model projecting Bennett allows just 2.4 earned runs over six innings and neither team clearing five runs.
- Shohei Ohtani carries the shortest home run odds on the board at +250, with first pitch set for 7:20 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium.
- The model returned nearly 30 units of profit on home run prop picks in 2025, per the article, and its specific moneyline pick for Sunday's game is gated behind a SportsLine subscription page.
Why it matters: The heavy -184 price on the Dodgers looks steep given Boston has taken the first two games of the series and is 22-4 since July 1, meaning bettors backing the favorite are pricing in a near-65% implied win probability against a streaking underdog. The model's Under 8.5 lean matters because both pitchers' recent workloads (Bennett's 2.74 ERA, Sheehan's inflated 4.95) have trended toward lower-scoring games, with seven of Boston's last eight clearing the Under already.
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