Best NRFI/YRFI Teams in MLB This Season Entering June (Rockies, Nationals Strike Early)
By Matt De Saro
One thing I love about baseball is the seemingly endless stats that exist to obsess over. It seems like every year we have a new metric to factor in when making bets. I remember when Statcast became popular and everyone would not stop chirping about exit velocity and angle. It’s amazing how many different ways statisticians can put together the same numbers to create new ways of understanding the game.
One of the newer and trendy numbers that sports bettors have been keeping an eye on this year is first inning scoring. These bets have always been around, but they have exploded in popularity this year to the point where we write daily picks on them. These No run first innings (NRFI) and yes run first innings (YSFI) are new fan favorites for the public so I thought it makes sense to dive a bit deeper. Namely, I wanted to do a quick write-up on the best teams to bet on each side of this prop.
But first, what is the method for handicapping just the first inning of a game?
The biggest aspect of this wager is the starting pitchers, obviously. Also, the top of the order for each team is important. There are teams who lack quality starters and are consistently giving up runs in the first inning of games such as the Orioles and Tigers. Meanwhile, there are teams like the Angels who get out to early leads often. Let’s take a look at a few of these teams’ stats heading into June to make your first innings bets more profitable.
Top NRFI Teams in 2022 (as of June 1)
- Baltimore Orioles: 31-19
- New York Yankees: 29-19
- Boston Red Sox: 28-21
- Cincinnati Reds: 27 -20
- Atlanta Braves: 27-22
I mentioned the Baltimore Orioles above as a good example of an NRFI team for a good reason. They have led the league in this category in April and now in May. The Yankees are a close second, but the O’s continue to dominate the “not scoring early” world. And while many will look at this as an obvious that the O’s are a terrible offensive team, it’s important to understand this stat goes both ways. Meaning that while the O’s might have the worst first inning offense in the MLB, they are also not allowing runs to cross the plate on defense in the first frame of games.
The Yankees and the Red Sox round out the top three teams for May in this category thanks to some quality early-game pitching. The Yankees lead the league in runs allowed in the first inning with an average of 0.20 while the Red Sox are third at 0.34. They both rank outside of the top 10 in runs scored in the first inning on offense as well.
Top YRFI Teams in 2022 (as of June 1)
- Colorado Rockies: 29-19
- Washington Nationals: 29-21
- New York Mets: 29-21
- Los Angeles Angels: 28-21
- Texas Rangers: 26-21
Moving now to teams that play in games with a lot of runs in the first inning and we see some new names that weren’t in the top 5 last month. Only the Rangers and the Rockies remain on this list after taking the third and fifth spots last month. For Colorado, it’s a combination of ranking 11th in runs scored in the first inning and 25th in runs against. Based on some questionable math, I believe that means that games featuring the Rockies average 1.25 runs per game in the first inning. This has a lot to do with the fact that half of their games are in the thin air of Coors Field. But you can't argue with results and the Rockies are a solid bet moving forward for YRFI props.