Especially recently, the offenses are the show in baseball, with balls being launched ever higher and deeper into the night sky. Cal Raleigh and Aaron Judge’s concurrent chase for the American League home runs record has been such a story that some of the game’s incredible pitchers have been overshadowed.
That doesn’t mean the pitching is any worse than it has ever been. Plenty of star pitchers will crest the hill as part of tonight’s 15-game MLB slate. Here are my three favorite starting pitcher prop bets at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Best Starting Pitcher Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Paul Skenes 7+ Strikeouts (+100)
No pitcher on tonight’s slate is better than Skenes, who leads the National League in ERA, WHIP, hits per nine innings, and home runs per nine innings and has a 2.03 ERA through the first 239 innings of his MLB career. He’s coming off the worst outing of his MLB career by game score last Wednesday, when he gave up four runs on four hits in just four innings of work, walking two and striking out four. Though he was out-dueled by Milwaukee Brewers young flamethrower Jacob Misiorowski in that game, I still back Skenes to bounce back tonight.
Though St. Louis has struck out at the league’s seventh-lowest rate, the 1.5 percentage points that separate it from league average isn’t enough to ward me away from picking Skenes. He’s recorded seven or more punchouts in six of his last eight starts and one of his two games against the Cardinals. He also struck out seven or more batters in 16 of his 23 starts last season. One of the reasons why Skenes’ strikeout rate is down relative to last season is his 68th-percentile chase rate, but St. Louis chases at the league’s 11th-highest rate.
Jacob deGrom to Record a Win (+100)
One day, hurlers like Skenes, Misiorowski, and Tarik Skubal will dominate the headlines, but it’s hard not to watch deGrom pitch and reflect on how blessed baseball has been to have him, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, and Justin Verlander terrorizing batters for the better part of two decades. It’s an era that’s coming to an end; Scherzer and Verlander have both struggled in their last two seasons and Kershaw can barely touch 90 miles per hour. That’s a different story for deGrom, who has a 2.08 ERA in 95.1 innings this season in his comeback from his second Tommy John surgery. The 38-year-old’s last 13 starts have been absurd: a 1.67 ERA, 14 walks, and 81 strikeouts.
Tonight won’t be easy, given that the Orioles’ offense has been in pretty good form. In June, Baltimore went 16-11, scoring the fourth-most runs in baseball and posting the sixth-best OPS. It hasn’t missed a beat even with Adley Rutschman injured, as Gary Sánchez has slashed .351/.415/.568 in his last 10 games. The Orioles have certainly been in hotter form than the Rangers have; Texas went just 13-13 in June as its offensive struggles continued. Still, I don’t trust Brandon Young, who has posted a 7.11 ERA in his first three professional starts, including a 7-0 defeat to none other than deGrom last Wednesday.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto U1.5 Earned Runs Allowed (-130)
Yamamoto’s ERA has ballooned from 0.90 at the end of April to 1.97 at the end of May to 2.61 now, but the Japanese star is well-poised to put a rough June behind him. He was his typical brilliant self the last time he crested the hill, needing just 56 pitches to breeze through five one-hit innings against the Colorado Rockies before a rain delay cut his outing at least two innings short. I’m expecting a long and fruitful outing tonight in the perfect Southern California conditions.
The 26-year-old couldn’t ask for a kinder opponent tonight. The White Sox have had the league’s worst OPS and third-worst ISO this season, including a lower mark against righties than lefties, a lower mark on the road than at home, and a lower mark in night games than day games, so it could be a very long night for Chicago. Yamamoto is occasionally prone to giving up walks and hard hits, but while the White Sox have actually hit the ball pretty hard, they’ve tended to hit it directly to fielders.
