No Japanese-born starting pitcher has ever won a Cy Young Award, but this season, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani could be the first. The two-way star has had a comparatively slow start to the season as a hitter, but with a 0.82 ERA through his first seven starts of the season, he’s certainly making a strong Cy Young case, even if his low innings count could prevent him from qualifying for league leaderboards at the end of the season.
Tonight at 8:45 p.m. ET, Ohtani will make his eighth start of the season, likely putting him back above the qualification threshold, when the Dodgers travel to face the San Diego Padres in a matchup that could determine early control of the NL West.
Below, I’ve taken a look at Ohtani’s strikeouts prop on DraftKings Sportsbook and offered my prediction as to whether or not he’ll get there.
Shohei Ohtani Strikeouts Prop
Ohtani’s strikeouts prop is set to 7.5 at DraftKings Sportsbook, with +115 odds that he’ll throw at least eight and -147 odds that he’ll finish the evening with seven or fewer.
Ohtani has always had elite strikeout stuff; he’s had five MLB seasons in which he’s made at least 10 starts, and in 2022, he led the league in strikeouts per nine innings. Additionally, among starters, he and his teammates Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow form the top three in strikeouts per nine innings (minimum 100 starts). Ohtani has fanned at least eight batters in three of his past four starts.
His raw stuff speaks for itself. He ranks in the 82nd percentile or better in expected ERA, expected batting average, fastball velocity, whiff rate, strikeout rate, walk rate, barrel rate, and ground ball rate, and both his fastball and curveball just so happen to have some of the highest spin rates among comparable pitches. Were it not for a 46th-percentile hard-hit rate, Ohtani would be above the median in every single Statcast category, an extremely rare feat.
Shohei Ohtani picks, predictions
Ohtani has a solid matchup tonight against the Padres, who have struck out the 16th-most times this season. However, that number has jumped to the seventh-most in May, a month in which they rank second-to-last in OPS. San Diego only struck out six times in Los Angeles’ 5-4 win last night, but on Monday, it fanned eight times against Yoshinobu Yamamoto, a pitcher with less consistent (though still dominant) strikeout stuff than Ohtani.
Five of the nine hitters who will start tonight for the Padres strike out more frequently than the league median, including leadoff hitter Fernando Tatís Jr. As is customary, Ohtani will pitch on six days’ rest, and he has a higher strikeout rate in such situations. Plus, Emmet Sheehan provided only four innings yesterday, so the Dodgers needed to use five different relievers and could benefit from some length from Ohtani tonight.
Best Bet: Shohei Ohtani O7.5 Strikeouts (+115)
