How will Brandon Pfaadt perform in his second start against the Padres this season? Will Garrett Crochet continue to put up great strikeout numbers against the strikeout-prone Red Sox? Will Mike Yastrzemski record a hit for the third consecutive game?
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How will Brandon Pfaadt perform in his second start against the Padres this season? Will Garrett Crochet continue to put up great strikeout numbers against the strikeout-prone Red Sox? Will Mike Yastrzemski record a hit for the third consecutive game?
Here are the best MLB PrizePicks plays for Friday, June 7.
Our PrizePicks Cheat Sheet helps bettors by comparing lines from PrizePicks vs. our daily MLB projections >>
Friday’s Best MLB PrizePicks Player Predictions
This Season: 45-32-1
Pfaadt has struck out 71 batters in 73.0 innings this season. He's coming off an eight-strikeout performance, and he's struck out at least five in four consecutive games. While he's only recorded four or fewer strikeouts in four of his 12 starts, he does have a six-inning, zero-strikeout game to his name.
Pfaadt's consistency is a positive for him, but the Padres' lineup will pose a problem. One of his four four-strikeout-or-lower performances came against the Padres on May 4. In his career, he's struck out only eight Padres batters in 55 at-bats. Plus, the Padres have the fourth-fewest strikeouts in the league, despite playing three more games than almost every other team in the league. This is simply a bad matchup for Pfaadt.
This is a big number, but Crochet is the type of pitcher who can strike out eight batters in any given start. He struck out eight Brewers in his last start and 11 Orioles in his start before that. He does struggle to pitch deep into games, logging just 69 2/3 innings in 13 starts. However, he also has 93 strikeouts this season, so Crochet makes the most of the innings he does pitch.
The Red Sox have the third-most strikeouts in the league this season. The lineup has almost no history against Crochet, so we're going to give the advantage to the pitcher. The Red Sox do score a lot of runs, so they could chase Crochet early, but he's pitched at least five innings in seven consecutive starts. If he gets there tonight, he will easily hit this over.
Yastrzemski has recorded a hit in back-to-back games for the first time in nearly two weeks. At the moment, he has a batting average of just .214, and he's only hitting .154 in June. Tonight, he faces a tough matchup against Michael Lorenzen. His little hit streak is likely to come to an end.
Though Yastrzemski has one hit in three at-bats against Lorenzen in his career, he's also struck out twice. Lorenzen has only allowed 38 hits in 54.2 innings this season. He's also pitched six or more innings in all but one of his starts. That means Yastrzemski will potentially face him three times. He may not even get a crack against a different pitcher.
Phil Wood is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Phil, check out his archive and follow him @Phil_Wood_Jr.
