Grayson Rodriguez takes on the Seattle Mariners for the second time this season. Will he go over his strikeout total against the most strikeout-prone team in the league? How d0es Jose Berrios perform in his second start against the Houston Astros? And can Kyle Higashioka continue to hit well against Nathan Eovaldi and the Texas Rangers?
Here are the best PrizePicks plays for Tuesday, July 2's MLB games.
Our PrizePicks Cheat Sheet helps bettors by comparing lines from PrizePicks vs. our daily MLB projections >>
Grayson Rodriguez takes on the Seattle Mariners for the second time this season. Will he go over his strikeout total against the most strikeout-prone team in the league? How d0es Jose Berrios perform in his second start against the Houston Astros? And can Kyle Higashioka continue to hit well against Nathan Eovaldi and the Texas Rangers?
Here are the best PrizePicks plays for Tuesday, July 2's MLB games.
Our PrizePicks Cheat Sheet helps bettors by comparing lines from PrizePicks vs. our daily MLB projections >>
Tuesday’s Best MLB PrizePicks Player Predictions
This Season: 61-46-3
Facing the Mariners has a way of getting a pitcher back on track. In five June starts, Rodriguez struck out six or fewer batters four times. On Wednesday, he had a solid start against the Cleveland Guardians to move his record to 9-3, but he only struck out four batters in 7.0 innings. Yet, the over is the right play in this game.
Rodriguez struck out seven Mariners in 6.0 innings in his only other start against them this season. He was pulled from that game earlier than he should have been, and it's unlikely the Baltimore Orioles make the same mistake again. The Mariners continue to lead the league in total strikeouts. Despite his recent struggles, Rodriguez has struck out 89 batters in 82.1 innings. This all points to a lot of strikeouts for Rodriguez tonight.
This is the second time that Berrios has faced the Astros this season. He struck out only two batters in 6.0 innings in the first meeting. Berrios has a few great performances under his belt this season. He struck out eight New York Yankees in 7.0 innings in his last start. Yet, this is a terrible matchup for him.
Berrios has struck out just 14 Astros batters in 89 at-bats in his career. That's a rate of one strikeout for every 6.3 batters faced. At that rate, Berrios could pitch a complete game tonight and still not hit the over. The Astros have struck out the fewest times in the MLB. With how good the Astros are at making contact and how much Berrios has struggled against them, there is no reason to expect Berios to do any better than the two strikeouts he threw earlier this season.
On Sunday, Higashioka saw his five-game hitting streak come to an end. During that streak, he could only raise his batting average to .211 despite going 3-of-4 in one game. That clearly illustrates how much Higashioka has struggled at the plate this season.
Tonight, he faces Nathan Eovaldi, a pitcher who has allowed only 59 hits in 73.0 innings. A matchup like this would normally call for the under, but Higashioka actually has good career numbers against Eovaldi. He is 3-of-9 against him with two RBIs. In almost any other matchup, we'd take Higashioka under 0.5 total bases or just leave this prop alone. But tonight, he's going to start up a new hitting streak.
Phil Wood is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Phil, check out his archive and follow him @Phil_Wood_Jr.
