The National League could be decided tonight, as the Los Angeles Dodgers have a 3-0 lead over the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS and have home field advantage for tonight’s clash, which will start at 8:38 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers are now just five wins away from becoming the first back-to-back champions since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees.
Los Angeles will send likely MVP Shohei Ohtani to the mound for his second career postseason pitching appearance. While Milwaukee hasn’t yet named a starter, Jose Quintana is likely to be the bulk pitcher after Jacob Misiorowski took the loss in relief last night.
There are hundreds of bets available on any given game, and many of them can be combined into same-game parlays. Here’s my favorite three-leg parlay on tonight’s potential clincher, and if you’re wondering, the last parlay I wrote on the Dodgers hit. I’ve also hit each of my last six prop bets on this series.
Dodgers vs. Brewers Same Game Parlay
- LA Dodgers -1.5
- MIL Brewers U2.5 Alternate Total Runs
- Shohei Ohtani 7+ Strikeouts Thrown
LA Dodgers -1.5
The Dodgers have won each of the last two games by multiple runs, riding late-game charges off of fatigued Milwaukee relievers to pull away. Los Angeles has accounted for its bullpen struggles by simply not using relievers, as starting pitchers Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Tyler Glasnow have pitched all but 4.1 innings this series. The Brewers’ pitching staff has been solid, holding the Dodgers to just 10 total runs, but that hasn’t been enough for either of the last two games to be competitive. Los Angeles is playing with confidence and should be highly motivated to win tonight’s game to give itself a huge rest advantage entering the World Series, especially since the ALCS seems destined for a Game 7. Six innings for Ohtani, one each for Emmet Sheehan and Jack Dreyer, and one for Roki Sasaki should get the job done.
Milwaukee Brewers U2.5 Alternate Total Runs
I almost considered going with U1.5, given that they’ve scored exactly one run in each of the past three games and are going against arguably the best of the Dodgers’ four aces, but thought that I’d be pushing my luck to do so. After all, Ohtani is one of only two Los Angeles starters to give up more than one earned run in a game these playoffs after allowing three in six innings of work in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies (Yamamoto gave up three in four innings in Game 3 of that series, the team’s only loss). Ohtani got pretty unlucky in that start, posting a 1.14 FIP, and as a whole, his advanced numbers are actually better than Snell’s, Yamamoto’s, or Glasnow’s.
Shohei Ohtani 7+ Strikeouts Thrown
Milwaukee was one of the league’s least strikeout-prone teams during the regular season, striking out the fifth-fewest times and posting the third-lowest whiff rate, but it has struck out 30 times over the first three games of the LCS, the second-highest per-game rate of the four participants. Each Dodgers starter has recorded seven or more strikeouts this series (Snell 10, Yamamoto 7, and Glasnow 8), and while Ohtani won’t pitch a complete game like Yamamoto did, he also has a higher strikeout rate and lower walk rate than any of the other three starters, so his pitch count is less likely to skyrocket. He’s recorded seven or more strikeouts in each of the games in which he’s thrown at least 80 pitches, and he’s on 12 days’ rest as a pitcher.
