Last night, during the Los Angeles Dodgers’ series finale against the New York Mets, I got to watch Shohei Ohtani in person for the first time. He didn’t disappoint, taking his second pitch of the game deep for his league-leading 18th home run of the season. It smacked into the second deck of Citi Field. It was also the Dodgers’ only run of the game in the eventual 3-1 defeat.
After another series defeat, Los Angeles will hope to bounce back this week with a road series against the Cleveland Guardians. Staff ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto is on the mound for tonight’s series opener.
The Dodgers are 1.5-run favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook and the total is set for 7.5. Below, I’ve highlighted my favorite prop bets centered around the two-time reigning MVP.
Best Shohei Ohtani Prop Bets on DraftKings Sportsbook
Shohei Ohtani 1+ Home Runs (+245)
Although he’s hit six homers in his last 11 games, there’s no reason to believe he’ll slow down any time soon. It’s far from a guarantee that he’ll hit homers on back-to-back nights, but he’s already had four stretches of home runs in consecutive games so far this season, including a streak of three, as well as 11 such runs in his 2024 MVP season. I would say that it’s a sign that when Ohtani gets hot, he gets really hot, but I’m not sure that the slugger knows the meaning of a hitting slump either in English or in his native Japanese. If anything, you could argue that Ohtani’s on the tail end of a slump, having slashed just .160/.222/.440 over his last six games.
Speaking of slumps, Gavin Williams hasn’t really lived up to the promise that made him a first-round pick in the 2023 MLB Draft out of East Carolina. He’s never had a season in which he’s posted a sub-three ERA or better than a 2.5 strikeout-to-walk ratio, and he actually finished with a negative WAR in 2024. He’s conceded at least one homer in six of his 10 starts this season, and he carries just an 11th-percentile barrel rate and a 31st percentile average exit velocity. Williams also throws his fastball on a slight majority of his pitches, and 10 of Ohtani’s 18 homers have come against fastballs. Plus, four of Williams’ seven homers have been hit by lefties, and Ohtani has hit 14 long balls against right-handed starters.
Shohei Ohtani O0.5 Walks (Batter) (-110)
Even if he doesn’t go deep against Williams, Ohtani is fairly likely to get on base and make impacts in other ways. His runs prop isn’t good enough value for me to take here (over 0.5 runs is -150) but his walks prop is fair value. Ohtani has walked in nearly half of his games this season, owns an 88th percentile walk rate, and has nearly as many walks as strikeouts against right-handed starters. There’s always a threat of him being intentionally walked to set up a double play if ninth hitter Hyeseong Kim reaches second base, and given Kim’s .425 OBP and four stolen bases in his first 18 career games, that’s a nonzero possibility.
Williams has just never been able to get his stuff under control; despite being a flamethrower with a 97-mile-per-hour fastball, he ranks in just the fourth percentile in fastball run value in large part because it has been so inconsistent. This season, he has an 11th-percentile walk rate, and though he’s saved from that figure being even worse by inducing hitters into chases 28.8% of the time, that might not be so effective against Ohtani, who avoids chases at a 73rd percentile rate. Williams has issued multiple walks in all but two of his starts this season.
