With Major League Baseball back at full speed after the All-Star break, 13 games are scheduled under the lights on Saturday night. From the 26 probable pitchers, DraftKings Sportsbook has plenty of starting pitcher prop bets to consider. After taking a look at the matchups, lines and odds available, my top starting pitcher prop bets for Saturday include plays from Yu Darvish, Zebby Matthews and Lance McCullers Jr.
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Best Starting Pitcher Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Yu Darvish under 4.5 strikeouts (-115)
Darvish will be making just his third start of the season on Saturday night as the Padres take on the Nationals in D.C. The Friars took Game 1, 7-2, behind a grand slam from Manny Machado.
In his first start of the year, Darvish went over this strikeout total with five punchouts in his season debut against the Diamondbacks but he only had two strikeouts in his last outing against the Phillies. Darvish did get up to 83 pitches in that start, so he should be relatively stretched out, but I still think he’ll come in under this total.
The Nationals have a K% in the bottom six in the majors this season at 20.5% K%. That number has crept up a little bit lately, but most of that has been due to some tough matchups against lefties. Against righties like Darvish, they are under 20% K% for the season and should be able to limit their strikeouts against the Padres starter on Saturday night.
Zebby Matthews over 5.5 strikeouts (+125)
I highlighted Matthews as one of my top MLB DFS plays as he returns from the IL and takes on the Rockies. It’s high-risk to use him in DFS, but another way to back him is to take him to go over this strikeout total in Colorado. One advantage to playing his strikeout total is that even if Coors Field’s elevation leads to some runs allowed, Matthews should still be in a good spot to rack up strikeouts.
In his 19 MLB innings, Matthews has a 30.1% K% and has racked up 25 strikeouts, averaging 6.3 strikeouts per start. In his last two starts before ending up on the IL with a shoulder strain, he had seven and nine punchouts.
While he was working his way back from that strain, he made one rehab start and needed only four innings to pick up nine strikeouts against the Iowa Cubs.
The Rockies aren’t quite that friendly of a matchup, but they lead the majors with a 26.6% K% against right-handed pitching and a 26.4% K% over the last 30 days.
The big question is how long Matthews will be able to pitch coming off his injury, but he shouldn’t have to go deep into the game to get at least six strikeouts in such a favorable spot.
Lance McCullers Jr. over 2.5 runs (+125)
McCullers and the Astros will have a tough task slowing down the surging Seattle Mariners, who went into the break with an impressive sweep of the Tigers and won on Friday night, 6-1.
McCullers gave up two runs to the Mariners back on May 22 in 4 1/3 innings against them in Houston, but he has given up at least four runs in three of his last four starts. He did a good job holding the Dodgers in check in his one strong outing over that span, but he was knocked around by the Rangers for five runs in three innings last Friday in his most recent outing.
On the season, McCullers has a 6.48 ERA and 5.77 FIP while allowing a 48.3% hard-hit rate and 12.5% barrel rate. Giving up so many barrels has resulted in nine home runs over his 10 games this season, and with Cal Raleigh and Randy Arozarena heating up but mashing right now, they should be able to get to McCullers for at least three earned runs on Saturday.
I highlighted Arozarena in my top home run props for the night, and I think the M’s power surge and McCullers’ recent issues with allowing hard contact will result in him going over this earned run total on Saturday.
