The Milwaukee Brewers came tantalizingly close to winning Game 1 of the National League Championship Series last night, loading the bases in the bottom of the ninth trailing by a run. Brice Turang nearly got plunked by a Blake Treinen sweeper but instinctively moved out of the way before striking out on the next pitch. It’s now 1-0 to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are seven wins away from becoming the first repeat champions since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees.
The second game of the series will feature the teams’ respective aces, Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Dodgers and Freddy Peralta of the Brewers, and it will begin at 8:08 p.m. ET tonight.
Los Angeles is a -126 favorite on the Moneyline, with the run total set to 7.5. Milwaukee is +104 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll take you through my three favorite player props from what is a must-win clash for the Brewers.
Dodgers at Brewers Prop Bets for Game 2
Yoshinobu Yamamoto O6.5 Strikeouts (+106)
Yamamoto is in need of a bounce-back in two ways. He took the loss in Game 3 of the NLDS after conceding three runs on six hits in four innings, allowing only the seventh homer ever hit out of Dodger Stadium. American Family Field was also the site of his worst start of the regular season, when he conceded five runs (three earned) on four hits and two walks while getting just two outs in a defeat on July 7. Thankfully for Dodgers fans, though, Yamamoto has been nothing if not resilient this season.
He took eight losses during the regular season, and in the starts immediately following them, he pitched 49.1 innings, allowing just nine earned runs (a 1.64 ERA) and striking out 54, including at least six in all but one of his bounce-back starts. By and large, Yamamoto was also brilliant on the road, allowing just a 2.13 ERA in 18 starts on unfriendly turf, which would drop to 1.89 without his outlier start against the Brewers. He’s coming off of six days’ rest after throwing just 67 pitches in his last start, and in 12 starts on six days’ rest, he averaged 1.1 more strikeouts per nine innings than when starting on five days’ rest.
To be fair, Milwaukee neither strikes out nor whiffs much in general, but it if Blake Snell can rack up 10 strikeouts like he did last night, it’s not at all unreasonable for Yamamoto to get to seven, as he’s done in exactly half of his starts this season. His strikeout rate is higher than Snell’s, and as a team, the Brewers fanned more frequently against right-handers than lefties.
Freddy Peralta 4+ Hits Allowed (+136)
Peralta has longer odds to allow four hits than Yamamoto despite Los Angeles’ star leading the league in batting average against, which doesn’t make a ton of sense. The gist is that Pat Murphy, who has a stronger bullpen than Dave Roberts, will be have a quicker hook on Peralta than Roberts will Yamamoto, which is probably true, but this seems like good value against a pitcher who allowed four or more hits in 18 of his 33 regular season starts and in one of his two NLDS appearances. He’ll be on four days’ rest, but he threw 85 or more pitches in every single start he made on four days’ rest during the regular season and may need to do so again, given that six different Milwaukee pitchers threw 18 or more pitches last night.
The Dodgers’ offense isn’t guaranteed to put up four hits on him early — they needed 16 outs to do so last night against Aaron Ashby, Quinn Priester, and Chad Patrick — but four hits isn’t that high of a bar for a unit that posted the league’s sixth-best batting average during the regular season and has hit .300 against right-handed pitching so far these playoffs. Prior to last night, the last time Los Angeles faced a right-handed bulk pitcher came against Zack Littell in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series, and it mashed six hits off of him in 3.1 innings of work. The Dodgers got five hits off of Peralta on July 7.
Sal Frelick 1+ Singles (+101)
The Brewers are brilliant distributional hitters. During the regular season, they hit 997 balls to the right side of the field, 993 to the left side, and 2,312 up the middle. But Frelick pulled it far more frequently than he hit it to the opposite field, so he should have an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that Los Angeles’ weakest defender, right fielder Teoscar Hernández plays there. Dodgers fans have become accustomed to Hernández’s mental errors these playoffs. Of course, Frelick potentially reaching on a Hernández error wouldn’t cash this prop, but great fielders turn hits into outs and bad fielders like Hernández turn outs into hits through lackluster jumps and routes.
Plus, Yamamoto throws four-seamers and splitters most frequently against lefties, which could work in Frelick’s favor. The 25-year-old very rarely whiffs as is, but he’s posted just a 10.8% whiff percentage against right-handed four-seamers and a 13.0% mark against splitters, and he’s also hit .291 or better against both pitches. To be fair, both he and Yamamoto actually have reverse platoon splits, but the combined difference in batting average is 36 points, which isn’t that notable. Frelick has singled in three of Milwaukee’s six postseason games so far.
