The World Baseball Classic is underway and continues on Thursday with four games. Read on for our WBC best bets for Thursday, March 9.
The World Baseball Classic continues on Thursday with four games on the docket.
Thursday's WBC schedule kicks off with Japan making its much-anticipated tournament debut against China while Italy will battle against Cuba in the second of the two early games. Both China (vs. Czechia) and Cuba (vs. Panama) will then play about 15 hours later.
Here are our WBC best bets for Thursday (odds via FanDuel and DraftKings; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
Thursday's WBC schedule and odds
(Odds via FanDuel)
- China (+3500) vs. Japan (-50000) – 5 a.m. ET
- Italy (+104) vs. Cuba (-128) – 6 a.m. ET
- Czechia vs. C hina – 10 p.m. ET
- Cuba vs. Panama – 11:30 p.m. ET
Thursday's WBC best bets
- Total: China vs. Japan Over 11.5 (-120 via DraftKings) ???
- Moneyline: Italy ML vs. Cuba (+104 via FanDuel) ???
Thursday's WBC top picks
Shohei Ohtani leads Japan against China on Thursday. The Japanese are huge favoritesby the WBC odds at -50000 (no, that's not a typo) against China (+3500) at FanDuel.
Ohtani will take the mound for Japan in its opening game against Xiang Wang, who does not have a baseball reference page. Given the WBC's pitching rules, Ohtani should only throw a handful of innings so he's available for Japan's next games.
The two-way player hit two home runs in an exhibition game and I'm expecting Japan to put on a show against China on Thursday. Japa n scored 11 runs in its opening game in the 2017 WBC.
Cuba dropped its opening game by a final score of 4-2 against the Netherlands on Tuesday night. Despite guys like Yoenis Cespedes, Yoan Moncada, and Luis Robert playing for Cuba, the team managed just three collective hits against the Netherlands.
Matt Harvey will be on the mound for an Italy team looking to make some noise behind Vinnie Pasquantino, David Fletcher, and others.
Roenis Elias is a solid starting pitcher for Cuba, but he struggled in two MLB spring training appearances.
This game is a toss-up but I'm going with the underdog Italians against a Cuba team that may be holding their bats a bit tighter after the opening loss.
WBC best bets made 3/8/2023 at 4:44 p.m. ET
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