MLB PrizePicks Player Predictions: Thursday (4/25)

Another positive 2-1 day via PrizePicks slowly creeps the record into .500 territory. We have a bevy of afternoon games today to enjoy before the Yankees and A’s meet at night, so let’s find a few early winners for this Thursday, April 25.

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Thursday’s Best MLB PrizePicks Player Predictions

PrizePicks Record This Season: 12-15

Nestor Cortes Less Than 7 Strikeouts

Just kidding. Let’s start with Nestor Cortes taking on the lowly Athletics in the nightcap. Oakland strikes out a ton, but similar to Clarke Schmidt’s 7.5 strikeout line, this is far too high for Cortes. Since joining the Yankees’ rotation, Nestor has been under this mark in 41/49 starts (84%). Admittedly, there are plenty of outings with exactly seven punchouts, so it could get a little sweaty. Ultimately, this should cash. Five of the seven left-handed starters to face Oakland have failed to find at least eight strikeouts.

Freddy Peralta More Than 17 Outs

Milwaukee’s pitching staff thinned out this offseason but Freddy Peralta has stepped up mightily. Through four starts, he has a 2.40 xFIP with a 12.55 K/9, while going six innings in three of his four starts. The one time he failed to go six innings, he finished with 17 outs. He isn’t one to typically work deep into games and Pittsburgh does tend to work deep counts, but they often fail to get anything going against righties. Their 86 wRC+ is the sixth-worst in the league.

Randy Vasquez Less Than 4.5 Strikeouts

Similar to the Athletics, the Rockies strike out at a very high clip, but typically that rate is lesser at home. The altitude affects the movement on pitches, thereby limiting strikeouts, at least in theory. That hasn’t been true to start the season, but it might not even matter with Colorado facing Randy Vasquez. He is hardly a strikeout machine, having failed to go over this mark in five of his six career starts in the big leagues. He made his first start with the Padres five days back and went only five innings while striking out three. We don’t have the largest sample size with his career, but a 7.59 K/9 isn’t going to get it done, even against the Rockies.

Make sure to check out our other best bets for Thursday:

Tyler Gentile is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Tyler, follow him @808Paperboi