Ahaan Rungta
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Thursday Night Football has bettors and their sportsbooks busy, but we don’t discriminate when it comes to finding value – we’ve found a peculiar market with plenty of value on tonight’s thin MLB slate. Here is my best player prop bet for the evening of Thursday, and make sure to check out all of our MLB predictions for today’s slate.
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Adley Rutschman (BAL) over 0.5 singles (-120)
Line available at DraftKings at time of publishing; recommended 0.50u wager.
The Orioles have lost back-to-back games at the hands of struggling starting pitchers; it is time for an attempt to bounce back in a new series against a divisional rival, and for that to happen, their leadoff man needs to set the stage for a deep lineup. He gets a good matchup to do that against Rays starting pitcher Aaron Civale.
Why I find value in this peculiar market has to do fully with Rutschman’s consistency in cashing this exact prop. Since August 1, Rutschman has an impressive 136 wRC+ against right-handed pitching at home, but that is with a low 6.3% walk rate, low .136 ISO, and middle-of-the-pack 30.0% HardHit%. In that 16-game sample, he has 15 hits and 12 of them are singles.
Civale brings with him a low 6.7% walk rate but some hittable stuff (34.8% HardHit%) against left-handed hitters on the season. His best pitch is a curveball that he heavily uses for outs against left-handers, but since August 1, Rutschman has posted a team-leading .488 xBA against right-handed curveballs.
Even if the Baltimore switch-hitting catcher doesn’t get the job done against Civale and the Rays turn him around to hit right-handed, his recent numbers provide similar encouragement. Since August 1, Rutschman has posted a 133 wRC+ but low .137 ISO against left-handed pitchers as well. I would recommend playing this prop up to -125 on your sportsbook.
Our YRFI/NRFI bets bets are on a 4-0 run!
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