After rain postponed their opener on Thursday, the Detroit Tigers begin the 2018 MLB season by hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates at 1:10 p.m. ET on Friday. Pittsburgh is -120 on the money line, meaning a $120 bet on the Pirates would return $100. The over-under for total runs scored is 9.5.

Before you make any kind of pick, you need to see what SportsLine expert Michael Rusk has to say.

Finishing his first novel, "Why Vegas Never Closes," Rusk has built his name by exploiting flaws in public betting.

With his economics and statistics background, Rusk uses multiple algorithms along with recency bias to produce profitable MLB picks. And that's exactly what "The Prodigy" did last year, returning over $3,000 for anybody who followed his MLB selections with $100 bets.

Now he's studied this matchup from every angle and locked in his picks. We can tell you that he's leaning to the under (9.5 runs), but his strongest pick is on the money line. He's sharing that only over at SportsLine.

Rusk knows that the Pirates unloaded key pieces in the offseason like outfielder Andrew McCutchen and starting pitcher Gerrit Cole as the Buccos look to rebuild in 2018.

And with Cole now in Houston, the Pirates will first hand the ball to Ivan Nova, who had a strong debut in Pittsburgh in 2016, but regressed last season on his way to a 4.14 ERA.

They'll meet up with a re-tooled Detroit squad looking to bounce back from a forgettable 64-98 campaign.

The Tigers also moved on from several key veterans in an effort to build a younger core around superstar Miguel Cabrera. He, however, is looking for a resurgence as well after hitting just 16 home runs in 2017 and seeing his batting average fall to a career-low .249.

New Detroit skipper Ron Gardenhire is turning to veteran right-hander Jordan Zimmerman as his opening-game starter. Zimmerman struggled mightily in 2017 with an 8-13 record, 6.08 ERA and 1.55 WHIP.

Rusk has evaluated all of the circumstances and found an alarming stat that makes one side of the money line a must-back.

So which team should you back? Visit SportsLine now to see which side of the money line you should jump all over, and what alarming stat will be the difference, all from an MLB expert who returned over $3,000 on his MLB picks in 2017.