The race for the second NL Wild Card spot heats up on Friday with the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers starting a three-game series with a matinee matchup at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The Cubs (72-61) enter the game with a 2.5-game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies for the second Wild Card spot. The Brewers (68-65) are four games back. On Friday, Jose Quintana (11-8, 4.05 ERA) takes the mound for Chicago (-145). Milwaukee will counter with Chase Anderson (6-3, 4.34). Elsewhere on Friday's schedule, two Wild Card hopefuls in the AL -- the Cleveland Indians (-160) and Tampa Bay Rays -- begin a three-game series at Tropicana Field. And rookie Aristides Aquino takes his record-breaking home run tour to St. Louis, where the Cincinnati Reds face the St. Louis Cardinals (-116) in the first game of a four-game series. Fans everywhere will be playing off MLB odds for the Friday MLB schedule, but before locking in any MLB picks of your own, you'll want to see the best MLB bets of the evening from SportsLine predictive data engineer Mike McClure.

McClure is a data analyst for SportsLine and professional daily Fantasy player recognized in the book Fantasy Football (and Baseball) for Smart People: How to Turn Your Hobby into a Fortune. Using his acclaimed wOBA model, which stands for weighted on-base average, McClure is up more than $2,000 on MLB picks for SportsLine over the past three seasons. And he's on a solid run since the All-Star break, hitting on 21 of his last 32 picks (66 percent), bringing in $837 to $100 players in a short amount of time.

Now McClure has dug into every Friday matchup and locked in three strong picks. Parlay them together and you could be looking at a payout of more than 6-1.

We can tell you that McClure's model is high on the Los Angeles Dodgers (-130) on the road against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Despite losing four of its last seven games, Los Angeles still is the best team in the NL by a solid margin. And the Dodgers have had success against Arizona this season, going 10-6. 

McClure also likes that Tony Gonsolin is on the mound for L.A. In the four games since making his major league debut, Gonsolin has allowed just three runs and 12 hits in 19.0 innings for a 1.42 ERA. In his last start, he held the mighty Yankees to one run on two hits in 5.0 innings in a 2-1 win.

"Zac Gallen has been pretty good this season, but he's getting too much respect against Tony Gonsolin and the Dodgers," McClure told SportsLine. "Gonsolin has been awesome in his first 22 innings of work, and he has one of the best lineups in baseball behind him. My simulations make the Dodgers -150 road favorites in this matchup."

McClure's model has also unearthed a key x-factor that has him all-in on a road underdog Friday, offering major value on the money line and pushing the parlay to new heights. You can see who it is only at SportsLine.

So which MLB picks should you make for a shot at a payout of more than 6-1? And which road underdog wins at a nice price? See Friday's MLB schedule below, then visit SportsLine to get Friday's MLB best bets, all from the SportsLine data engineer who has returned a huge profit on MLB picks the last three seasons.

Brewers at Cubs (-145), 2:20 p.m.
Athletics at Yankees (-140), 7:05 p.m.
Marlins at Nationals (-258), 7:05 p.m.
Mets at Phillies (-138), 7:05 p.m.
Astros at Blue Jays (+180), 7:07 p.m.
Twins at Tigers (+240), 7:10 p.m.
Indians at Rays (+144), 7:10 p.m.
White Sox at Braves (-205), 7:20 p.m.
Mariners at Rangers (-119), 8:05 p.m.
Orioles at Royals (+102), 8:15 p.m.
Reds at Cardinals (-116), 8:15 p.m.
Pirates at Rockies (-124), 8:40 p.m.
Dodgers at Diamondbacks (+115), 9:40 p.m.
Red Sox at Angels (+125), 10:07 p.m.
Padres at Giants (-126), 10:15 p.m.