It’s not every day that a league leader in a major statistical category takes the mound, and it’s also not every day that a former Cy Young Award winner pitches. Today’s slate has both of those.
Unfortunately, it’s not a positive category: the Miami Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara has conceded 89 earned runs this season, one more than the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Zac Gallen. At least the 2022 NL Cy Young has looked better as of late, and I’m willing to include him on my top starting pitcher prop bets for the 10 games that start after 6 p.m. ET.
Here are my three favorite starting pitcher prop bets for tonight’s games at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Best Starting Pitcher Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Sandy Alcantara U5.5 Hits Allowed (-105)
Alcantara probably won’t ever return to his Cy Young-level form, but he’s been a pretty respectable pitcher over his last five starts, posting a 3.60 ERA across that span and giving up five or fewer hits in three of the five. Although he hasn’t been particularly consistent — those five starts have included three elite outings and two poor ones — it’s nice to know that he still has that ceiling. In each of the five starts, he’s bettered his season average whiff rate.
It’s also easy to target the St. Louis Cardinals, given their poor offensive performance recently. The Cardinals rank seventh-to-last in OPS so far in August even after scoring 15 total runs in the first two games of the series, both wins. But some of that damage has come against Miami’s mediocre bullpen; Monday starter Eury Pérez conceded just two hits in his 4.1 innings of work, though Edward Cabrera did get tagged for 11 hits yesterday. Statcast figures indicate that Cabrera got pretty unlucky to allow as many hits as he did, so I’m not ready to call St. Louis’ offensive slump over just yet.
Jacob Misiorowski O5.5 Strikeouts (+110)
The Milwaukee Brewers wunderkind was poor in his first start after a brief stint on the injured list with a left tibia contusion, imploding in a four-run second inning in which he managed to put just 10 of his 27 pitches in the strike zone before getting pulled after four outs. The rough outing caused his ERA to skyrocket from 2.70 to 3.89, but it shouldn’t overshadow the fact that the 23-year-old has been a revelation for the league’s best team.
Even in the poor outing, his strikeout rate was 27.3%, which would be the 11th-highest rate in baseball this season. At that rate, he’d only need to face 22 batters to record six strikeouts, and while he’s only done that once, he’s faced 18 or more in five of his eight starts, recording six-plus strikeouts five times.
Plus, the Chicago Cubs have posted the league’s worst OPS so far in August, and while they’ve only struck out the 13th-fewest times, generally inept offensive performance should allow Misiorowski to stay in the game longer and give him more opportunities to rack up K’s. Two of the Brewers’ three starters so far this series have recorded six or more strikeouts.
Shohei Ohtani U1.5 Earned Runs Allowed (+110)
As the Los Angeles Dodgers continue to work Ohtani back into form as a pitcher, manager Dave Roberts has repeatedly indicated that the three-time MVP would see up to five innings of work on the mound. However, in his last start, he wasn’t able to handle the extra workload, conceding two runs on three hits and getting yanked after recording one out. As Los Angeles finds itself in the throes of a division title fight, Roberts can’t afford to rest Ohtani tomorrow night, as he’s indicated might be the case. Four innings for Ohtani, unless he’s cruising, seems plausible and would make it more likely he plays tomorrow.
Can he be effective across a shorter outing, if that’s indeed on the cards for him? Discounting his terrible fifth-inning foray, his ERA would be 2.74 instead of the 3.47 that it is, and his expected ERA is a microscopic 2.26. Plus, Ohtani pitched seven innings of one-run ball in his one career outing against the Colorado Rockies, so it should be an opponent he’s comfortable with, although he’s never faced them at Coors Field. Though he gives up too many pulled fly balls, most of them have been hit softly, so not even altitude can carry them out.
