Thursday night MLB strikeouts: Krothers picks Shohei Otani, Carlos Martinez, Alex Wood
So many day games today! I wish I had time to bet on and watch Shane Bieber – would have made easy money taking the over 9.5 line – he went 7 innings and struck out 12!
Ah well, let’s see else we can do to make up that easy money…
Angels @ Athletics, 9:40 pm ET
There are few “must watch” players out there today, but one is the modern-day Babe Ruth, the Angels’ Shohei Otani. There are some interesting stats out there showing his hitting dips on the day after he pitches, but all we care about here are his strikeouts. He has a good matchup against Oakland, which is why I’m surprised most books have the line set at 5.5. I expect him to get 7-8 K against this lineup, I’m taking the over and -182 from the folks at DraftKings.
Cardinals @ Diamondbacks, 9:40 pm ET
The Cardinals have Carlos Martinez taking the bump tonight and I don’t expect many strikeouts in this game. This has nothing to do with his pitching ability, actually I like Martinez’ stuff and think he’s a good pitcher – just not the power type. The bookies seem to agree and have set the line at a ridiculously low 3.5. As low as it is, I think he won’t hit 4. His past two outings he’s struck out 2 and in the start before that, his best of the year where he went 8 innings against the Pirates, he only struck out 3. For that reason, I’ll take the under 3.5 and +110 from BetMGM.
Giants @ Dodgers, 10:10 pm ET
The starting pitcher for the Giants tonight is Alex Wood and he has been great this year – 5-1 record, 1.93 era, 1.05 WHIP, and 42 strikeouts over 42 innings. He’s generally getting 6-7Ks a start, hitting 9 once against the Rockies. If he were facing any team other than the Dodgers, I’d put money on a win. He may still get the win, but what we’re trying to figure out here is the strikeout number. His last time out he also faced the Dodgers and struck out 7 over 6 innings. The difference here is that last time it was at home which I like to account for an extra .5K on average (depending on the home stadium of course.) Given that, I’m going to predict a 6K outing which puts us just over the line set at 5.5 at most books. If you really wanna push things, FanDuel has their line set at 6.5 and are offering +134 for the over. I’m not going to go that far but take the over 5.5 at BetMGM at -149.
Come back again — same bat-channel — Batman out!