Mondays and Thursdays are always interesting in the MLB because with some series beginning and others ending, games are scheduled all throughout the day.
Multiple games have already ended, while others have just started. Three more will begin at 6:40 p.m. ET or later, with the San Diego Padres hosting the Baltimore Orioles, the Tampa Bay Rays welcoming the Seattle Mariners, and the Texas Rangers traveling for a 2023 World Series rematch with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Tonight’s evening slate is filled with talented starting pitchers having down seasons. Here are my two favorite starting pitcher prop bets from the three games at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Best Starting Pitcher Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Kyle Bradish 5+ Strikeouts (+115)
Bradish finished fourth in Cy Young Award voting in 2023, posting a 2.83 ERA and striking out 168 in 168.2 innings as the Orioles finished with the second-best record in baseball. Then, after a strong start to his 2024 season — in which he allowed two or fewer runs in seven of his eight starts — he underwent Tommy John surgery. Tonight will mark his second start since his return; last Tuesday, he conceded two solo homers in six innings, striking out 10 and walking none. His 47.6% strikeout rate obviously isn’t sustainable, but he had a top-decile rate in his 39.1 innings last season and had 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings in his six-start MiLB rehab stint.
To be fair, the Padres are contact kings, striking out at the league’s third-lowest rate this season, but five strikeouts isn’t a particularly high bar. Bradish has reached it in 42 of his 62 career starts, and the fact that he threw 89 pitches in his final rehab start and 81 pitches in his return indicates that he won’t be on any sort of pitch count tonight. San Diego has posted a higher strikeout rate against righties than lefties and has allowed the opposing starter to record five or more strikeouts in four of its last five games.
Ryne Nelson to Record a Win (+155)
While the Diamondbacks as a whole have had a down season as a pitching staff, especially given that they made a run to the World Series two season ago, Nelson has recorded a 2.93 ERA in 80.0 innings across his last 14 starts, picking up five wins along the way. The 27-year-old isn’t immune from the occasional blow-up — he had a stretch last month in which he conceded nine runs in 11.2 innings — but he’s been Arizona’s second-best starter overall. He shouldn’t give up more than a pair of runs, especially with the Rangers down Corey Seager, who underwent appendix surgery, and Marcus Semien, who broke his foot after fouling a ball off of it.
I also like the Diamondbacks’ chances of getting to Patrick Corbin, who posted a 7.71 ERA in August even after finishing the month with an eight-inning shutout gem. Advanced numbers aren’t kind to the 36-year-old, who ranks in the bottom quartile in expected ERA and whose signature slider has been a net-negative pitch this season. I keep waiting for Arizona’s offense to fall off without Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez, both of whom it dealt at the trade deadline, but Blaze Alexander has filled in seamlessly for Suárez, posting an .811 OPS and bashing seven homers. Alexander’s exploits helped the Diamondbacks post the league’s ninth-best OPS in August despite Tyler Locklear, the centerpiece of the Suárez deal, being impotent offensively.
